In such terrible weather it was of course useless to think of pursuing their investigations; it would, indeed, have been the sheerest madness to have attempted to face the furious gale, with its deadly cold and the blinding whirling snow. The travellers were therefore compelled to spend an inactive day. For this, however, they were by no means sorry; they had been keeping rather late hours since entering the Arctic circle, and this interval of inaction afforded them an opportunity of securing their arrears of rest. Besides this there were sketches to complete, and a thousand little odd matters to attend to—to such an extent, indeed, that when they once began work they wondered at their own thoughtlessness in not having attended to them before. Thus employed, with occasional interludes of meditative gazing out upon the ceaseless whirling rush of the snow, the day passed rapidly and pleasantly away, wound up by an hour or two of vocal and instrumental music after dinner. They retired early to their warm comfortable state- rooms that night, and were lulled to sweet dreamless slumber by the howling of the gale outside.

The four following days were spent in the same manner—the gale lasting all that time with unabated fury, accompanied by an almost ceaseless fall of snow. But on the fifth day the weather moderated; the snow ceased, or at all events fell only intermittently; the wind backed round and blew from the south-west; and the exterior temperature, which during the gale had fallen to thirty-three degrees below zero, rose twenty degrees. The sky was still overcast and lowering, it is true, and the cold was still intense. But notwithstanding this the weather, compared with that of the preceding five days, seemed positively fine; and, wrapping themselves up in their warmest clothing, and arming themselves with pick and shovel, they set out to discover if possible what lay concealed beneath the two queer-looking poles.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

AN INTERESTING RELIC.

They issued from the ship through the trap-door in her bottom; and no sooner did they find themselves in the open air than an almost uncontrollable impulse seized them to go back again. The contrast between the warm comfortable temperature of the ship's interior and the bitter piercing cold without was so great that at first the latter felt quite unendurable. They, however, persevered; and, after perhaps ten minutes of intense suffering, the severe exercise of scrambling over the rotten slippery hummocks somewhat restored their impeded circulation, and they began to feel that, perhaps, after all, they might be able to do something toward the execution of their self-imposed task. The mere act of breathing, however, continued to be exceedingly painful; and when they at length reached the spot of which they were in search, they were able to fully realise, for the first time in their lives, the incredible difficulties attendant upon the exploration of the regions within the polar circles.

On a nearer inspection of the two poles they proved to be stout spars about the thickness of a man's leg; and, from the appearance in each of a sort of sheave-hole, Lieutenant Mildmay declared his conviction that they were the masts of a small ship. They were very rotten, however, and, if Mildmay's surmise was indeed correct, the craft must have been under the ice for a very long time. The mere suggestion was enough to fully arouse their curiosity; and, forgetful for the moment of the intense cold, to which they were already in a measure growing accustomed, they set to work with a will plying pick-axe and shovel upon the ice with such small dexterity as they possessed.

The task to which they had devoted themselves was, after all, not a very difficult one, the ice, especially that of ancient formation, yielding readily before the vigorous strokes of their picks; and it soon became evident that they could work to greater advantage by dividing themselves into two gangs of two each; one gang breaking up the ice with the pick, and the other shovelling away the debris. The low temperature, however, made the work very exhausting; and by lunch time they had only succeeded in excavating a hole some twenty-five feet long—or the distance between the two masts—by six feet wide and four feet deep. They had widened this excavation by a couple of feet and sunk it some four feet deeper by six o'clock that evening; and then they knocked off work for the day, returning to the Flying Fish stiff, and exhausted with their unwonted exertions, but with more voracious appetites than they ever remembered experiencing before.

In this way they laboured day after day for ten days; being greatly hindered in their operations by frequent showers of snow, which filled up their excavation almost as rapidly as they made it, until, beginning to lose patience at their slow progress, they resolved to run a little risk, and the professor was induced to employ a minute portion of his explosive compound in blowing away the sides of the pit to a sufficient extent to allow of the snow drifting out with the wind instead of lodging in the bottom. This engineering feat was successfully accomplished without apparent damage to the object they sought to bring to light; and, thus encouraged, they further cautiously employed the compound in breaking up the ice, with the triumphant result that, on the evening of the thirteenth day before giving up work, they succeeded in uncovering the deck of a craft measuring eighty feet long over all by sixteen feet beam. They were now intensely excited and elated, as they had every reason to believe that—judging from certain peculiarities of build which had already revealed themselves—they had discovered a most interesting relic.

The next morning was most fortunately as fine as they could reasonably expect it to be in that stormy and desolate region; and, commencing work at an early hour—having, moreover, by this time acquired quite a respectable dexterity in the use of their tools—they succeeded by lunch time in laying completely bare the entire hull of what proved most unmistakably to be a veritable ancient Viking ship.

This intensely interesting relic was, as already stated, eighty feet long by sixteen feet beam; with a depth of hold in midships, as they now found, of eight feet; she must therefore have been at the time of her launch quite a noble specimen of naval architecture. She was of course built of wood, and was beautifully moulded fore and aft; her stem and stern-posts were carried to a height of five feet above her rail; and the former was finished off with a rather roughly hewn but vigorously modelled horse's head, whilst the latter terminated in an elaborately carved piece of scroll-work. She was fully decked, with a sort of monkey-poop aft, about two and a half feet high and twenty feet long, beneath which was her principal cabin. Her bulwarks and rail were very solidly constructed; the former being pierced with rowlock holes for sixteen oars or sweeps of a side, in addition to holes abaft, one on each side of, and near the stern-post, for the short broad-bladed steering paddles. Both of these paddles, together with twenty-three oars and two square sails, shaped somewhat like lugs and still attached to their yards, were found stowed fore and aft amidships on the vessel's deck. They were all in an excellent state of preservation, as were also the lower portions of the masts; indeed it was only that portion of these spars which had been long exposed to the air which showed signs of rot, the upper extremities being most rotten, whilst the parts close to the deck were perfectly sound.

Having fully satisfied their curiosity with regard to the exterior of this interesting craft, they next essayed to penetrate below by forcing open the after hatch. On removing the cover a small and almost perpendicular ladder was revealed, down which Mildmay rapidly made his way. On reaching the bottom he found himself in a small vestibule or ante-room, the floor, sides, and ceiling of which were thickly cased with smooth glassy ice, long icicles of varying thicknesses also depending from the beams and deck planking overhead. He could trace the existence of a door in the middle of the bulkhead facing him; but it was hermetically sealed with the thick coating of ice before mentioned, and the removal of this occupied over half an hour. Whilst he was thus engaged the rest of the party at his suggestion returned to the Flying Fish for the small electric lamps used in their diving operations; and when they returned he was just about ready to force open the door of the after cabin. This was accomplished without much difficulty, and a faint sickly odour at once became apparent, issuing from the interior of the cabin.

Consumed by curiosity, the party pressed eagerly forward through the doorway, and a most extraordinary sight at once revealed itself. The cabin was a tolerably roomy apartment for the size of the vessel, having for furniture a solid handsomely carved oaken table in the centre, shaped to suit the narrowing dimensions of the vessel abaft, and side benches or lockers all round the sides. The walls or inner planking of the ship were thickly covered with seal, walrus, and white bear skins, evidently hung there to prevent, as far as possible, the penetration of the extreme cold through the ship's sides; and upon large nails, driven through these and into the planks, were hung various trophies of weapons, such as long two-handed swords, small shields or targets, maces with heavy iron-spiked heads, short-handled battle-axes, spears, unstrung bows, and quivers of arrows. But it was not these objects, interesting as they were, which first riveted the attention of the intruders; it was upon the occupants of the cabin that their startled glances fixed themselves. Yes, strange as it may seem, the four nineteenth-century travellers found themselves face to face with some at least of the hardy crew who had stood on the deck waving their last good-bye to wives, children, or sweethearts—who shall say how many years ago?—when that stout galley swept out of harbour with pennons flying, oars flashing, and arms glancing, maybe, in the brilliant sunshine, as she started on the enterprise of wild adventure from which she was never to return. The inmates were four in number. Three of them were reclining on the lockers, their heads pillowed upon, and their bodies thickly covered with skins, whilst the fourth, doubtless the master spirit of the expedition, sat as in life at the narrow or after end of the table, his body supported in a massive quaintly carved oaken chair.

The bodies, the floor, the table, and every article in the cabin were thickly coated with frost-rime, which glittered with a diamond-like lustre in the cold keen light of the electric lamps, and the first act of the visitors was to carefully remove and clear away this frost coating. To their intense satisfaction this task was accomplished by gentle brushing without the slightest difficulty, and they were then able to minutely inspect the bodies of these ancient sea kings. They were in a state of surprisingly perfect preservation, and indeed had the appearance of having only recently fallen asleep, the intense cold having seized upon them with such fierce rapidity that their bodies had completely congealed before even the primary stages of decay had had time to manifest themselves. Indeed, judging from appearances, they had succumbed, in the first instance, to starvation, and, overcome by weakness, had been frozen to death. They were all of lofty stature and muscular build, with fair hair and tawny beards and moustaches, the latter worn extremely long. They were fully clad, all in garments of the same general character, excepting that those of the seated figure appeared to be of somewhat finer material than those of his companions. These garments, the outer ones, that is to say, consisted of a thick leathern tunic confined at the waist by a broad belt, and leather drawers reaching from the waist to the ankles, thick leather socks or stockings, and sandals laced to the feet and legs by leather thongs. The tunic of the chief was elaborately embroidered on the breast in silk, a winged black horse being the central and most conspicuous design. The trophy hanging at the back of the sitter's chair consisted of a small circular shield, with a formidable axe, double-handed sword, and mace crossing each other, behind it, the whole being surmounted by a handsome bronze headpiece, or helmet without a visor, having a large pair of finely modelled wings starting from the sides and near the crown. The helmets of the other three occupants were of similar shape, but without ornament of any kind. Two drinking horns were upon the table, one being plainly mounted in bronze, and the other elaborately mounted in silver and supported upon three legs modelled after those of the horse, the fourth leg being lifted in the attitude of pawing the ground.

But perhaps the most interesting object of all was a sheet of parchment which lay stretched upon the table before the sitter, and which he had evidently been studying when the drowsiness of death seized him, and, sinking back in his chair, he had closed his eyes for ever. This parchment was, of course, stiff with the frost of centuries; but by exercising the utmost care the finders succeeded in conveying it intact to the Flying Fish, and in thawing it out, when it was found to be covered with a rude but vigorously drawn sketch or chart, representing with surprising accuracy of outline—but without much attention to scale—the whole of the channel between the west coast of Greenland and the east coast of America, and showing, at the top or northern margin, an irregular line evidently intended to represent land. And in the top left-hand corner of the chart was a square space marked off as a separate and distinct chart, the centre of which was occupied by an island, the southern coast-line of which corresponded in shape with the line drawn next the northern margin of the main or principal chart. Rudely drawn figures of the whale, narwhal, walrus, seal, and polar bear were sketched here and there upon the chart, as though to indicate spots where these animals had been seen by the author of the document; and on the island shown in the small subsidiary chart, great numbers of animals were drawn, among those represented being hares, foxes, deer, seals, and elephants, besides others which the travellers failed to identify. There was also a sketch of a ship—very similar in appearance to the craft from which the chart had been taken—represented as sailing away from the island. This particular sketch was the source of much speculation on the part of the quartette; Sir Reginald and the colonel being disposed to regard it as an insertion for the purpose merely of giving a more effective appearance to the chart, whilst the professor and Mildmay were of opinion that it was intended to convey an intimation that the mysterious island had actually been visited.

The above particulars, it need scarcely be said, were ascertained and the surmises discussed after dinner that day; the party not leaving the galley until they had effected a thorough and exhaustive examination of her from stem to stern. They found little else of interest on board her, however, except ten more bodies in the large fore-cabin or forecastle of the craft. The store-rooms occupied the central portion of the vessel, being accessible only from the after end, and the fact that they were clean swept of everything which could by any possibility have served for food, tended to confirm the impression that the expedition had perished of starvation. One or two documents and a massive vellum-bound book were discovered, and these, together with some of the armour and weapons found on board, were taken possession of, but the documents and book proved to be written in a tongue wholly unknown to either of the discoverers, and they were therefore destined to remain for some time longer in ignorance of the history of the long-lost expedition. One fact only was it possible to discover in connection with it, which was that the hardy and resolute crew had undoubtedly cut their way for a very considerable distance into the heart of that vast field of everlasting ice. This was most conclusively ascertained by Sir Reginald and his friends, who, on board the Flying Fish, were able to follow quite unmistakable traces of the channel cut by the unknown explorers for a distance of fully forty miles to the southward of the galley itself.

The examination of this strange and interesting craft being at length completed, the cabin doors were closed, the hatches replaced, and the ship, with all that she contained, left to the mercy of the weather, there being no doubt that the excavation so laboriously accomplished would soon be again filled up by the almost ceaseless snow-fall, and the ship again concealed in all probability for ever.

The first thing after breakfast on the following morning, the northward journey was resumed in the face of a perfect hurricane from the northward, accompanied by so tremendous and incessant a fall of snow that it was utterly impossible to see anything at a distance of more than twenty feet in any direction. It was, of course, quite out of the question for anyone to venture outside the door of the pilot-house in such terrible weather; and the cold even inside on the steering platform was so intense that the breath of the travellers was condensed on their moustaches, and, instantly congealing, rapidly formed into a mass of ice which effectually prevented the opening of their mouths. An attempt was made to elude the storm by rising into the higher regions of the atmosphere; but the cold there proved to be so unbearable, notwithstanding the protection afforded by the stubbornly non-conducting material of which the Flying Fish was built, that they were compelled to descend once more, and their journey was continued at about a height of one thousand feet above the ice, and at a speed of ninety miles per hour, at which rate of travel they considered that they were stemming the gale, and perhaps actually progressing to windward some ten miles or so every hour.

The dreary day lagged slowly on, with the occurrence of no event of importance, until about four o'clock in the afternoon, at which time the travellers became conscious of a decided rise of temperature. By five o'clock the cold had so greatly diminished that they were compelled to throw off their thick fur outer clothing; and half an hour later, the thick dreadnought jackets, which constituted their ordinary outer covering in bad weather, were also discarded; the snow meanwhile giving place to sleet, and the sleet in its turn yielding to a deluge of driving rain. And, whilst they were still wondering what this singular phenomenon might portend, a hoarse low muffled roar, accompanied by an occasional grinding crash, smote upon their ears through the heavy swish of the rain; the dull white monotonous expanse of the ice-field was abruptly broken into by a jagged irregular-shaped black blot ahead; and, almost before they had time to realise the extraordinary change, the Flying Fish had swept beyond the northern boundary of the immense expanse of paleocrystic ice, and was careering northward, at an elevation of about a thousand feet, above the surface of a liquid sea which raged and chafed and tossed its foamy arms to heaven under the influence of the fast-diminishing gale.

"Hurrah!" ejaculated the professor; "hurrah! Scoresby and Kane spoke the truth; and my pet theory turns out to be correct, after all. Gentlemen, look round and feast your eyes upon the glorious spectacle of an open Polar Sea!"

Whether it actually was an open sea, or only an unusually wide channel between two ice-fields, was now the question to be settled. It certainly looked like the former; it was completely free of floating ice, large or small, except the cakes which were broken away by the waves from the edge of the enormous floe just left behind, and they were kept by the wind close to their parent mass; the sea ran so high and was so regular as to convey the idea of a very considerable extent of "fetch;" and, lastly, there was neither ice nor ice-blink to be seen anywhere along the whole stretch of the northern horizon.

Impatient to solve this momentous and interesting question, the Flying Fish was pushed to her utmost speed, causing her to make headway over the ground, and against the fresh breeze still blowing, at a pace of about ninety miles per hour. A quarter of an hour later the rain ceased, and the flying ship plunged into the midst of a dense fog, so thick that it was impossible to see even so far as the guard-rail on either side of the deck. The temperature had by this time, however, risen to thirty-three degrees above zero (Fahrenheit), and the travellers therefore at once resolved to again brave the rigours of the upper atmosphere. An immediate ascent was accordingly made, with the satisfactory result, that at an elevation of three thousand feet above the sea-level they found themselves once more clear of the fog, with no perceptible fall of the thermometer, and with a clear view ahead. Twenty minutes more of travelling, and the northern skirts of the fog- bank were past, the clouds broke away, and the westering sun cast his ruddy beams upon the surface of the heaving waters. The sea was still without a vestige of ice, and the horizon was perfectly clear ahead.

Consumed with enthusiasm and impatience, the travellers now effected a descent to the surface of the sea, that having been proved to be the situation in which the Flying Fish made her greatest speed, and the journey was promptly proceeded with. A further run of twenty miles found them beneath a cloudless sky, with the wind, soft and balmy, fallen to the gentlest of zephyrs, and the temperature risen to the extraordinary height of forty-five degrees above zero. Their delight, especially that of the professor, was excessive at this wonderful change in their surroundings within so short a time; indeed von Schalckenberg became positively extravagant in his demonstrations, dancing about the deck like a schoolboy, laughing, cheering, clapping his hands, and uttering the most extraordinary prophecies as to what awaited them at the now not far distant pole. The moment was favourable for an astronomical observation; and the ship, notwithstanding their eagerness to press forward, was accordingly stopped for a few minutes to take the necessary sights, after which "Northward ho!" again became their watchword. A few minutes sufficed Mildmay to complete his calculations, and then, amidst vociferous cheering on the part of his companions, he announced to them the gratifying intelligence that they had approached to within a distance of only one hundred and sixty miles of the North Pole.

At the moment when this announcement was made it was exactly ten minutes after six o'clock p.m. The speed gauge showed that the Flying Fish was then making her way through the water at the rate of one hundred and fifty miles per hour; in a trifle over one hour more, therefore, if nothing prevented, they would reach the goal of their northward journey. Their enthusiasm became almost painful in its intensity; and as the Flying Fish rushed at headlong speed through the rippling waters, tossing the wavelets aside in a great outward-curling fringe of sparkling foam, and as the minutes lagged slowly away, the eyes of the quartette in the pilot-house were strained with ever-increasing intensity in their vain efforts to pierce the mysteries of the horizon ahead.

At exactly twenty minutes to seven o'clock, Mildmay electrified his companions, and put the finishing touch to their excitement, by raising an exultant shout of:

"Land ho!"

"Where?" "Show it me!" "I can't see it. You must be mistaken!" exclaimed his companions in chorus, after a breathless moment of vain peering into the pearly northern horizon.

"There it is, directly ahead, looking just like the edge of a flat grey cloud showing above the water's edge," was the reply.

Sure enough it was land; for when once their eyes had been directed to the proper point there was little difficulty in discerning it. Moreover, as the ship sped on, it rose rapidly above the horizon, the grey tint growing every moment darker and more distinct, and a few minutes later other land, more sharply defined in outline and more distinctive in colour, rose above the horizon immediately below it, showing that the table-land first made out lay at some distance from the southern shore.

And at this auspicious moment the sea began to exhibit signs of the life which teemed within its depths. An accidental glance astern showed an enormous school of whales spouting on the southern horizon; porpoises undulated sportively to windward; a troop of dolphins suddenly appeared for a moment alongside the ship, evidently straining every nerve to keep pace with her; and an occasional sea-otter rose now and then to the surface of the placid sea, to dive out of sight again the next instant in quite a ridiculous state of consternation at so unwonted a sight as the rushing form of the Flying Fish. Flocks of sea-birds of various, and indeed some of hitherto unknown, kinds next made their appearance, industriously pursuing their avocation of fishermen, and—unlike the sea-otters—paying little or no attention to their strange visitors. And finally, as they drew nearer in with the land, seals of various kinds were passed, sportively chasing each other, and pausing for a moment to raise their heads inquisitively and turn their mild glances upon the flying ship.

When within some ten miles of the land, it was deemed advisable to rise out of the water and to complete the journey at a few feet above its surface, thus taking the most effectual of precautions against accidental collision with a sunken rock. As the ship drew in still closer with the land, her speed was reduced; and, at a quarter after seven o'clock on that calm July evening, she once more settled down, like a wearied sea-fowl, upon the surface of the water, and let go her anchor in a depth of twelve fathoms, at a distance of half a mile from the shore, in a fine roomy well-sheltered bay of crescent form, the two horns or outer extremities of which rose sheer out of the water in the form of a pair of bold rocky spurs, backed up on the landward side by a sweep of low grassy hills, crowned, at a short distance from the shore, with a forest of majestic pines.

"Well!" ejaculated the professor, as he finally turned away and went below to dinner, after feasting his eyes on the splendid landscape, gloriously lighted up by the rays of the evening sun, "I was prepared to see many unexpected sights in the event of our reaching the North Pole, but grass and trees!—well, I was not prepared to find them."



CHAPTER TWELVE.

ANOTHER STARTLING DISCOVERY.

Notwithstanding the state of excitement which the travellers had been thrown into by the successful accomplishment of this, the first, and, perhaps, the most difficult part of their novel enterprise, they managed to secure a tolerably sound night's rest—if one may venture to term night any part of the twenty-four hours at that season and in that region, where the sun had never once sunk beneath the horizon since the twenty-first of the preceding March, and where the day had still two months more to run before it should wane into the long six-months' night of winter. But, as might be expected, they were up bright and early on the following morning, eager to explore this strange new polar land, and scarcely patient enough to sit down and consume with becoming leisure the appetising breakfast which the still imperturbable George had provided for them.

The meal, however, like most other matters, had an end at last; and the travellers felt themselves free to follow the bent of their impatient inclinations. But the expedition upon which they were about to enter was one not to be undertaken without due foresight and preparation. It was only to be a preliminary exploration, it is true, only a journey of some three or four miles into the interior; but the country and the climate having already proved so extraordinarily at variance with all their preconceived ideas, who could say what new and strange forms of animal life might not possibly be lurking within those vast forest depths? It therefore behoved them to adopt at least a reasonable amount of precaution, and so to equip themselves that, in the event of their encountering new and hitherto unsuspected dangers, they might not find themselves in a wholly defenceless condition.

The question of the kind of clothing to be worn was soon settled. The temperature stood at the extraordinary height (for that latitude) of fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit; and the air, actually cool and bracing, felt almost oppressively warm to them after the rigours of the paleocrystic ice-field; they therefore donned a suit of rough serviceable cloth of moderate thickness, and stout waterproof leather walking boots. Then, for arms, as they were merely going on a reconnoitring and not a hunting expedition, they decided to take their large-bore repeating rifles, which, with the explosive shells constituting their ammunition, would enable the explorers to face anything. And lastly, as accident or design might cause them to extend their ramble beyond its originally intended limits, they adopted the precaution of providing themselves each with a small light knapsack of provisions. Thus equipped they proceeded on deck, raised the two boats with their davits out of the snug below-deck compartments in which they had hitherto been concealed, and, lowering the smaller boat of the two, stepped into her, and were quickly conveyed to the shore.

It was with a curiously mingled feeling of awe and exultation that they sprang from the boat to the strand, and planted their feet for the first time upon this hitherto unknown and unvisited ground.

"Behold!" exclaimed the baronet, pointing to their footprints in the sand; "behold the first human footprints ever impressed upon this soil." And stepping rapidly forward until he had passed beyond the high-water mark, he unfurled a small union-jack which he carried in his hand, and, forcing the butt-end of the staff into the yielding sand, exclaimed:

"In the name of her most gracious majesty Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, I annex this land as a dependency of the British crown!"

Then they all took off their hats and gave three cheers for the queen; after which Colonel Lethbridge proposed that the newly-discovered country be called "Elphinstone Land," a proposition which was carried with acclamation by a majority of three to one, the dissenting voice being that of the baronet, who modestly disclaimed the honour of having the country named after himself.

But were theirs, after all, the first human footprints which had ever been impressed upon that soil? A decided answer in the negative awaited them; for they had not advanced very many yards from the shore when they came upon an object which, upon examination, proved to be an ancient and much-rusted spear-head broken short off but with some six inches of the haft still attached to it. The travellers felt, greatly disconcerted at this discovery; it robbed them at once irretrievably of the honour of being the first discoverers of the North Pole, and showed them that, at some unknown period in the remote past, there must have existed a man, or more probably a body of men, who, not only without the exceptional facilities offered by the possession of such a ship as the Flying Fish, but with, in all probability, ships infinitely inferior to the worst of those used by modern explorers, had actually achieved the hitherto deemed impossible feat of piercing the great ice-barrier and actually reaching the northern pole of the earth.

Who were they? Of what country could they possibly have been natives? And why was the fact of their important discovery suffered to sink into oblivion? Such were the questions which at once rose to the minds of the baronet and his companions, and to which their lips spontaneously gave utterance.

"I think there can be little doubt as to who and what they were," remarked the professor. "They were Vikings; and their leader it must unquestionably have been who drew the chart found by us in the Viking ship buried in the ice of the paleocrystic sea. It is his ship which we see delineated upon the chart; this is the land from which she is represented as sailing triumphantly away; and it was doubtless this land which the Viking ship, discovered by us, was making so desperate an effort to reach when death claimed her crew as its prey. The other question, as to why the discovery of this land was suffered to remain an unknown fact, is not by any means so easy to answer. Perhaps the man before whose dead body the chart lay spread open upon the table may have been its author and the original discoverer of this land; perhaps the ship represented on the chart and the ship discovered by us may have been one and the same; she may have been on her homeward voyage; and, finding the channels to the southward completely blocked with ice, may have been attempting to force her way back into the open Polar Sea when her fate overtook her."

"But, admitting for the moment that such may possibly have been the case," remarked the baronet, "how do you account for the fact that, whilst she must necessarily have forced her way twice through the ancient ice, she should have failed in her third attempt?"

"Her third attempt may have been made late in the season," answered the professor. "But it is just possible that her final attempt may have been to force not a third but a second passage through the ice. She may have been attempting to return southward instead of northward, as I just now suggested. My impression, with respect to the vast field of paleocrystic ice, is that at certain seasons—as when, for instance, two or three very mild winters have occurred in succession in the Arctic circle, followed possibly by exceptionally hot summers—it undergoes partial disruption, splitting up, in fact, into several lesser fields which drift for longer or shorter distances out into the open Polar Sea. The fact that Scoresby, Penny, and Kane all beheld, at different periods, an open Polar sea, tends to confirm this impression; and the circumstance that the bows of the galley discovered by us were pointing to the northward may be due, not to the fact that she was actually making her way north when finally frozen in, but to the accident of that portion of the field by which she was surrounded being subsequently turned completely round whilst adrift. But what object do I see yonder? Surely it is not a human habitation?"

It was, however, or at least had been, at some more or less distant period. It was the roofless ruin of a once most substantially built log-hut, measuring some twenty-five feet long by sixteen feet broad. The roof had fallen in; the log sides were decayed and moss-grown; and the interior was overgrown with long grass and brambles, with a stately pine springing to a height of some ninety feet from the very centre of the structure—all of which incontestably proved its antiquity; but that it was the work of man—most probably those who had left behind them the rusty spear-head—there could be no possible doubt.

The party minutely inspected this interesting ruin, but without making any further discovery, and then pressed forward through the heart of a belt of pine forest which they had by this time reached.

The walking was not difficult and they made tolerably rapid progress. That the country was not absolutely tenantless they soon had abundant proof, for they had not advanced more than half a mile before an Arctic fox was discovered gliding rapidly away before them. A little further on they came unexpectedly upon a herd of moose-deer. The behaviour of these animals—naturally extremely shy—conclusively proved that they had never before met such an enemy as man, for, instead of bounding rapidly away, as is their wont, they merely ceased feeding for a moment to stand and gaze curiously upon the new-comers, and then went on browsing again with the utmost composure. Their fearlessness offered a strong temptation to such inveterate sportsmen as Sir Reginald and the colonel; but not being in actual need of their flesh, and being, moreover, anxious not to disturb them just then, the party passed quietly on without firing a shot. A huge brown bear was the next animal encountered, and this time the baronet's love of sport overcame his humanity, bruin falling an easy victim to the noiseless but deadly percussion shell of Sir Reginald's large-bore rifle. A solitary prowling wolf next fell before the equally deadly weapon of the colonel; and then the explorers emerged on the other side of the forest-belt, and found themselves on the borders of an extensive tract of tolerably level country intersected here and there by low hills, with occasional patches of marshy land, the high flat table-land, which had been the first object sighted by them when approaching these shores from the southward, looming up, still misty and grey, at a long distance in the extreme background of the landscape.

Heading directly for this mountain, as a conspicuous landmark, the party again pressed forward, and were speedily delighted to observe several flocks of ptarmigan busily feeding on the crests of the low hills which here and there crossed the route. These birds proved rather shy, though not so much so as to have prevented the sportsmen making a very decent bag had they been provided with fowling-pieces. As it was, however, the birds were, of course, permitted to go free and undisturbed. A mile further on a small drove of musk-oxen were seen grazing in the distance, and, whilst some of the party were watching the animals and discussing the possibility of stalking them, Mildmay, who had been intently gazing through his binocular in another direction, startled his companions by exclaiming, in an almost horrified tone of voice:

"What on earth are those immense creatures moving slowly about in the valley away yonder? Surely they can't be elephants?"

"Elephants! my dear fellow, don't be absurd," remonstrated the baronet. "Where are they? Oh, ah! now I have them," as he brought his glass to bear in the right direction. "By George, they are elephants, though, and monsters into the bargain. And, I declare, it seems to me that they are covered with a thick coat of shaggy hair. Why, I never saw such a thing in my life."

"Elephants? Covered with hair?" exclaimed the professor in a voice so eager that it almost amounted to a scream. "Lend me a binocular, somebody; with my usual luck I have left mine at home—on board, I mean. A thousand thanks, Mildmay, my dear fellow. Now, where are these elephants of yours? Quick, show me where to look for them. Good heavens! if it should really be so. Ah! now I see them. Yes—yes—they are—they must be—Gentlemen, as I am a man of science, I solemnly declare to you the stupendous fact that those extraordinary animals are neither more nor less than living Mammoths. I congratulate you, gentlemen—I congratulate myself. Ach, himmel! to think that it should ever be my good fortune to actually behold, not only one, but a whole herd of living mammoths! I cannot believe it—yet—yes, there they are; it is no freak of a disordered imagination, but an actual, positive, undeniable reality."

The worthy professor was so excited that he could scarcely hold the binocular firmly enough to look through it, and it was really laughable—to his companions—to hear his "Ach's" and "Pish's" of impatience as he vainly strove to steady his trembling hands and get another good look at the herd of hitherto believed extinct monsters, which were quietly feeding at a distance of about two miles away. At length he, with a comical gesture of despair, restored the borrowed binocular to Mildmay, and, turning to his companions, exclaimed in a voice of feverish earnestness:

"Come, my dear friends, why do we stand idly gaping here and wasting valuable time, when we really have not a moment to lose? We may never have such a priceless opportunity again. Let us press forward, then, and at all risks secure a specimen of so unique an animal as the mammoth. If we were to achieve this and nothing more our success would be ample repayment for all the anxious thought devoted to the designing of our vessel, and all the money spent in her construction."

His excitement was contagious, and the baronet, after briefly arranging with the colonel a plan of operations, invited von Schalckenberg to follow him; Lethbridge and Mildmay going off in another direction, with the object of getting on the other side of the animals, and, in co- operation with the other party, driving them, if possible, within easy distance of the harbour in which the Flying Fish lay at anchor.

To do this a wide detour was necessary, and it was nearly an hour and a half later when the four men found themselves in a proper position to commence the operation of "driving." They had arranged themselves in the form of a semicircle round the herd, at a distance of about a quarter of a mile away, and, at a signal from the baronet, all hands advanced toward the huge creatures, shouting and gesticulating to the utmost extent of their several powers.

The mammoths, utterly unsuspicious of danger, had been quietly feeding among the long grass during the approach of their enemies; but on the baronet's first signal shout they paused, and, facing rapidly round in the direction of the noise, raised their trunks in the air and waved them slowly from side to side as though scenting the air. The hunters now redoubled their exertions, fully expecting that, on seeing them, the animals would wheel about and shamble off in the required direction. But, to their dismay, the creatures, instead of doing this, no sooner caught sight of the party than, with upraised trunks and harsh trumpet- like screams of rage and defiance, they charged furiously straight down upon them. The herd numbered ten individuals, four of which appeared to instantly constitute themselves the defenders of the party; and each of these promptly selected his own particular enemy, occupying his attention so fully that the remaining members of the herd were afforded every facility for escape.

It was a nervous moment for the hunters, who, never having faced such a creature before, had not the most remote idea of its fighting tactics; moreover, the aspect of the monsters, with their towering stature of fully fifteen feet, their thick shaggy coats of rusty brown hair, their enormous spirally curving tusks, and their small eyes blazing with fury as they rushed forward to the attack, all combined to produce such a hideous tout ensemble as might well strike terror to the boldest heart. But neither Sir Reginald nor the colonel were the men to shrink from an encounter when game was before them; Mildmay possessed all the cool daring and recklessness of the British seaman; and as for the professor, he would willingly have faced a thousand deaths to secure so new and rare a specimen of natural history as the creature before him.

The four sportsmen pulled trigger almost simultaneously. The baronet and the colonel had each selected the same spot, the eye, as the object of their aim, and both had been equally successful, the shell in each case passing upward through the eyeball into the brain, exploding there and causing instant death. The professor's fascinated gaze being riveted upon the wide-open mouth of his own particular adversary, he seemed to think that the yawning cavern thus revealed would be as good a place as any to empty his rifle into; and he did so—just in bare time to bring down his game and save himself from being trampled to a jelly. Mildmay, however, was not so fortunate. He seemed to think that it mattered very little where he directed his aim, so long as he made sure of hitting the brute somewhere, and he therefore fired point-blank at the chest of the mammoth which was menacing him. The shell sped true, but, encountering the thick shaggy coat and the enormously tough hide of the creature, failed to penetrate the body, and, exploding outside, only inflicted such wounds as further excited the already angry monster to a perfect frenzy of rage. Even at this critical moment there was time for another shot; but Mildmay most unfortunately forgot that he had nine loaded chambers still available, and instead of firing again he flung away his piece and ran for his life. The race was a disastrously short one, however; he had not run more than twenty yards when the huge creature was upon him. The great uplifted trunk gave one whirl in the air and descended with force enough to slay an ox. It struck poor Mildmay on his right side, and, but for the fortunate accident of his having at that moment tripped and fallen forward, the lieutenant would there and then have lost the number of his mess. As it was, he was sent whirling through the air like a cricket-ball, to fall senseless, and bleeding from the nose and mouth, fully forty feet away. The vindictive brute instantly turned short off with the evident intention of trampling his victim to death; but before he could reach the prostrate body a shell from the colonel's rifle sent him crashing lifeless to the ground. The remainder of the herd, evidently dismayed at the slaughter of their companions, now abandoned a half-formed intention which they had at first manifested to stay and fight it out, and went off in full retreat with horrible trumpetings of anger and alarm.

The colonel was the first to reach the side of his unfortunate friend, the professor and the baronet joining him as speedily as their legs could convey them to the spot. Very fortunately von Schalckenberg, among his other multitudinous acquirements, possessed a very fair knowledge of medicine and surgery; and his skilful fingers were soon at work removing the lieutenant's clothing so far as was necessary to investigate the nature and extent of his injuries. Singularly enough these were found to be comparatively trifling, a fractured rib and several very severe bruises being the sum of them. A little brandy forced between the lips of the sufferer soon restored him to consciousness, and he was able to sit up.

On attempting to rise to his feet, however, he experienced such severe pain that it was then and there resolved to let him remain where he was, two of his companions also remaining to mount guard over him and see that he came to no harm; whilst the third was to hurry back with all speed to the ship and bring her out on to the plain close by the spot where the accident occurred, when it would be a comparatively easy matter to convey the lieutenant from the spot where he then lay to his own bed on board the Flying Fish.

The professor, having first made Mildmay as easy and comfortable as circumstances permitted, volunteered for the service of moving the ship, explaining to his companions that, in the event of an attack of any kind, they, as seasoned sportsmen, would be able to far more effectually defend the wounded man than he could possibly hope to do; and then, Sir Reginald and the colonel quite concurring in this view, he set off for the bay, shouting back an assurance as he went that he would not be absent one moment longer than should prove absolutely necessary.

The worthy scientist was as good as his word; for in less than an hour from the moment of his departure the immense bulk of the Flying Fish was seen to rise into the air beyond the tops of the distant pine-trees, and, with her polished hull gleaming and flashing in the rays of the sun, to sweep gracefully round until she was heading straight in the direction of the anxious watchers. Under the professor's able pilotage she was soon brought to the ground and secured within a dozen yards of the spot occupied by them, when it was the work of a few minutes only to convey the injured man to his own stateroom, where his hurts were at once properly attended to and himself made thoroughly comfortable.

As soon as luncheon was over Sir Reginald and the colonel set out for the spot were they had shot the bear in the morning, one of them being armed with a large-bore rifle and the other carrying a fowling-piece; and on their return somewhat late in the afternoon they bore not only the skin, skull, and claws of the defunct bruin, but also a goodly bag of ptarmigan. During their absence the professor had also been very busy, dividing his attention pretty evenly between Mildmay and the finest specimen of the slain mammoths, the latter of which he had succeeded in nearly half-denuding of its skin. With the assistance of his two able-bodied friends this task was completed by dinner-time; and by the corresponding hour next evening not only was the enormous hide undergoing the first stage of preparation for the taxidermist, but the indefatigable labourers had also succeeded in hewing out the tusks of the other slaughtered mammoths. For health's sake the ship was then moved about a mile further inland, and the carcasses were left to the wolves, which had already gathered in large numbers in the vicinity.

Under the skilful treatment of the professor Mildmay made steady and rapid progress toward recovery from the very first; the baronet and the colonel had therefore no hesitation about carrying out a project which had been under discussion between them for the last two or three days, and which was neither more nor less than a pedestrian excursion to the far distant table-land which they had first sighted from the sea. They estimated that this goal of their journey, upon which they expected to find the actual site of the Northern Pole of the earth, must be about sixty miles distant from the ship; and they considered that the trip there and back would occupy them about six days. It would of course have been very much easier, and more convenient in every way, to have made the journey on board the Flying Fish; but the professor was busy with the preparation of his mammoth, the skin of which he had carefully stretched and pegged out on the ground alongside the ship, and was so averse to the losing sight of it, even for a few hours, that it was soon decided the Flying Fish must not be moved for the present. After all, the journey would probably not involve any very great amount of hardship; it simply meant camping out for five or six nights, or at least those hours of the twenty-four which did duty for night. And this the two seasoned hunters looked forward to as rather a pleasant change than otherwise.

The necessary preparations were all made on the previous evening, and after breakfast on the appointed day the two adventurers set out, taking leave of Mildmay—who was already out of bed again—and of the professor, who, to tell the truth, was heartily glad to be left to the uninterrupted prosecution of his task.

They were in light marching order, having resolved to carry nothing which they could possibly do without; their previous experience of the country had taught them that game was pretty plentiful, and that they might safely depend upon their guns for the supply of their larder; and their stock of provisions consisted solely, therefore, of a few biscuits and a substantial flask of brandy each. The temperature was decidedly mild, and had been so ever since their arrival at "Elphinstone Land," with settled fine weather, and they therefore carried nothing in the shape of extra clothing save a light macintosh each, which they bore securely strapped on the top of their knapsacks. The remainder of their impedimenta consisted of a double-barrelled gun for each man—one barrel being rifled and the other a smooth bore—two cartridge belts, one for the waist and the other for the shoulder, fully stocked; a formidable double-edged hunting knife each; a capacious waterproof bag containing a reserve supply of cartridges, and a small stock of matches and tobacco.

Their road for the first five or six miles led up a gentle acclivity, just sufficient to make itself felt, but not steep enough to render walking difficult or fatiguing. Then came a stretch of flat country, bounded on each side by the projecting spurs of a range of rugged hills of fantastic outline which stretched immediately across their path at a distance of some three or four miles or so. The pedestrians had not progressed very far across this plain before their attention became arrested by a curious phenomenon. The atmosphere immediately behind the range of hills last mentioned was thick with fleecy vapour, now so thin that the distant table-land could be dimly seen through it as through a veil, and anon so dense that it assumed a decided cloud-like shape upon which the unsetting sun shone with dazzling brilliancy. This thickening of the vapour seemed to occur at tolerably regular intervals of about twenty minutes each, and was immediately preceded by a sudden silvery gleam succeeded by a most brilliant and perfectly formed rainbow. The periodical recurrence of this singular phenomenon under a perfectly cloudless sky of course greatly excited the curiosity of the pedestrians, and they pushed rapidly forward, eager to ascertain the cause.

As they advanced, the encircling hills thrust their projecting spurs further and further into the narrowing plain, their slopes became steeper and more rugged, and rocks began to crop out here and there with increasing frequency through the lessening soil. A corresponding change of course occurred in the character of the landscape; it grew increasingly picturesque and wild at every step, and at length the travellers found themselves at the mouth of a narrow rocky boulder- strewn gorge bounded on either side by titanic masses of volcanic rock, rugged and moss-grown, with little patches of herbage here and there, or an occasional stunted pine growing out of an almost imperceptible fissure. The only signs of life in this wild spot consisted of a diminutive musk-ox here and there cropping the scanty herbage half-way up the apparently inaccessible height in spots from which it appeared equally impossible for the creature to advance or to retreat.

Plunging into this defile, the travellers advanced with steadily increasing difficulty, the boulders with which their path was strewed growing ever larger and more numerous until at length the narrowing road became completely choked with them, and the only mode of progression was that of a slow, toilsome, dangerous scramble. Still the pair pushed resolutely on, every minute hoping that the difficulties of the journey would come to an end, and every minute less willing to turn back and again encounter the obstacles already surmounted. At length the path became so narrow that one enormous boulder sufficed to completely block the way, whilst the perpendicular rocky walls of the chasm towered so far aloft that only the merest thread of sky was visible; the air grew chill and damp, and so deep a twilight gloom pervaded the place that it was difficult to distinguish any object more than half a dozen yards distant.

The weary travellers looked at each other in dismay. Was this to be the ineffectual ending of that long and toilsome scramble through the ravine? There was just one single narrow crevice between the huge boulder which blocked their way, and one of the precipitous walls which pressed so closely in upon them—a crevice left by the irregular shape of the block, and affording barely space enough for a man of robust proportions to squeeze himself through—and they determined that, before retracing their steps, they would at least satisfy their curiosity so far as to creep through this crevice and see what lay on the farther side. The baronet with some little difficulty squeezed through first, and his exclamation of astonishment quickly took the colonel to his side.

The pair found themselves in a narrow rent between the two vertical faces of rock—the projections of the one accurately corresponding with the indentations of the other, and clearly demonstrating that, at some distant period of the earth's history, that mighty chasm had been suddenly torn open by a great natural convulsion awful in its intensity beyond all power of imagination. The rent was roofed in as it were by boulders which thickly hung suspended and jammed in at varying heights between the almost touching walls of the rift; and the adventurous explorers could not repress a shudder as they glanced aloft at these huge masses and thought of the consequences to themselves which would ensue should a projecting corner just then yield and suffer its parent rock to come crashing down to the bottom. Their first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat; their second, to go forward; for at only a few yards' distance before them the rift closed altogether, except at the very bottom, where a low cavern-like fissure dimly appeared. A hasty consultation passed between them, resulting in a determination to go forward and explore the fissure.

Fortunately for their purpose they had, at an early stage of their difficulties, provided themselves with a couple of stoutish pine branches—wrenched from their parent stems and hurled into the ravine perchance by some winter storm—to aid them in surmounting the difficulties of the way, and these they now determined to utilise if possible as torches.

With some little difficulty the smaller ends of these brands were induced to kindle; but, once fairly ignited, they blazed up bravely, and thus provided with the necessary lights the adventurers boldly pushed forward and plunged into the recesses of the fissure.



CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AT THE NORTH POLE.

The opening was so low and so narrow, that for the first fifty or sixty feet the explorers were I obliged to creep forward on their hands and knees; then it widened and became gradually higher, so that by the time they had penetrated a couple of hundred feet they were able to resume a perpendicular attitude. The cavern, if such it could be called, still however remained so narrow that it was only here and there possible for them to walk side by side. It was also very tortuous; and the heights varied momentarily, at one time compelling them to stoop almost double in order to pass beneath some immense projection, and anon increasing so greatly that the light of their torches failed to reach and reveal the roof. They observed several rifts or crevices to the right and left of them as they pressed forward, but, with one or two exceptions, these were quite impassable, and those which were not so were still so cramped that they offered no inducement to deviate from the main passage.

Groping thus in semi-darkness over painfully rough and broken ground, a full hour was spent, and the colonel was just expressing his conviction that they must have traversed a distance of fully two miles when a faint glimmer of daylight revealed itself on one of the rocky walls of the passage; and, turning sharply round an angle, the pair suddenly found themselves once more within a few yards of the open air.

Emerging into broad daylight a most wonderful spectacle greeted the two adventurous explorers. They found themselves standing on a narrow strip of coarse sandy beach at the bottom of an immense basin, measuring fully a mile in diameter, the sides of which were formed of lofty precipitous cliffs of volcanic rock, so smooth and so nearly vertical that nowhere, at least in their immediate neighbourhood, could they discover a spot capable of being scaled. Before them, and occupying the whole bottom of this enormous basin, stretched a placid lake, the water of which was as clear as crystal. A thin filmy veil of vapour rose everywhere from the surface of the water, softening the hard outlines of the more distant landscape, and imparting an aspect of dreamlike witchery and unreality which it would certainly have otherwise lacked.

"Why, the water is tepid!" exclaimed Sir Reginald, plunging his hand into the lake and raising a small quantity of its water in his palm, to ascertain by taste whether it was fresh or salt.

The colonel thereupon thrust his hand down, and satisfied himself by experiment of the truth of his companion's statement. It was even more than tepid, it was positively warm.

The two were still discussing the probable reason for this phenomenon when their attention was suddenly arrested by a curious movement of the water in the centre of the lake. First a few tremulous ripples appeared, spreading outward from the centre; then the disturbance became more pronounced, until, within a minute, an area of some thirty or forty yards in diameter had assumed an appearance of violent ebullition. Suddenly a jet of steam and spray shot up out of the centre of this disturbed spot; and then, before either of the two bewildered spectators could find time to remark upon so curious a phenomenon, an immense column of purest crystal water shot into the air to a height of at least two hundred feet, and, gleaming and flashing in the sunbeams as it soared away above the level of the encircling cliffs, spread out into a dome-like sheet, and, leaving behind it aloft a dense cloud of vapour of dazzling whiteness, fell again into the lake in the form of a shower of boiling water.

"A geyser!" exclaimed the baronet. "A geyser! and of such grandeur that the Great Geyser of Iceland, which I have seen, sinks into the utmost insignificance compared with it."

"You are right," acquiesced Lethbridge. "I too have seen the so-called Great Geyser, and admired it immensely; but after this—"

He finished with a shrug of the shoulders so expressive that there was not the slightest need for words to explain his meaning.

"We must bring the professor to see this," he continued after a slight pause. "And—look here, Elphinstone—if you wish to intensely gratify the worthy man, call this geyser after him—'The Von Schalckenberg Geyser'—eh? It doesn't sound half bad, does it?"

The baronet laughingly consented to his friend's proposal, the more readily as he knew that what Lethbridge had said as to the professor's gratification was perfectly true; and then the wanderers resumed their journey, passing along the narrow strip of sand which divided the edge of the water from the base of the cliffs.

"There is no doubt, I think, that this geyser produces the cloud of vapour and the sudden flashing gleam, at tolerably regular intervals, which so aroused our curiosity this morning," remarked the baronet as they plodded somewhat wearily along side by side over the sand.

His companion assented, and then they both paused, and finally flung themselves down upon the sand to witness a repetition of the eruption, the premonitory signs of which at that moment made their appearance. Then, when it was over, finding themselves very comfortable—and very hungry—they concluded to take luncheon before again moving; and, this being followed by a pipe, it was after four o'clock in the afternoon when they once more made a move.

A saunter for three-quarters of an hour along the margin of the lake enabled them to reach a spot almost directly opposite that where they had emerged into daylight from the interior of the cavern; and here they found the point of overflow from the lake. The chain of hills, which from their first point of sight had appeared to completely surround the sheet of water, was here pierced by a narrow valley, through which a small shallow stream, emanating from the geyser lake, made its devious way. As the course of this valley appeared to trend generally in a northerly direction, or toward the high table-land of which the travellers were in quest, and as, moreover, the valley appeared to offer the only exit from the lake basin in a northerly direction, the travellers decided to follow its course, which they did by keeping close to the margin of the stream. This mode of procedure, whilst it afforded them tolerably easy walking, also enabled them to estimate more accurately than they had hitherto done, the enormous quantity of water projected into the air by the geyser; for whilst the stream normally consisted of a body of water some ten feet wide by three or four inches deep, it was swollen—at regular intervals of twenty minutes each, corresponding with the periodical discharge of the geyser—into a rushing and foaming torrent of about ten feet wide and four feet deep, lasting thus for about a minute, when the stream again rapidly subsided to its previous depth.

For a distance of about two miles the stream wound its way over a bed of exposed rock, beyond which occurred a considerable stretch of coarse gravelly soil, thickly overgrown with long grass. The constant flow of water for untold ages through this bed of gravel had scoured out a channel nearly forty feet wide by half that depth; the banks being perfectly vertical, except in a few places where the gravel had crumbled away to a rather steep slope.

It was whilst the wanderers were passing one of these places that—the sun being by this time in the western quarter of the heavens, and his level rays falling directly upon the right bank of the stream—the baronet's attention was arrested by the appearance of several bright sparkling gleams emanating from among the debris of the crumbling bank. He directed the colonel's attention to these, whereupon the latter, seized with sudden excitement, scrambled down the bank, waded across the shallow stream, and in another instant flung himself down upon his knees on the gravel. Before the astonished baronet could follow him he leaped to his feet again, and, whilst he waved some glittering object above his head, shouted:

"Hurrah! hurrah! Elphinstone, my dear fellow, we are in luck to-day. Here is a fabulous fortune for every one of us, to be had merely for the trouble of picking up. This is a bed of diamondiferous gravel."

Sir Reginald hastened across the stream, and, scrambling half-way up the bank, joined his companion on the spot where the latter had halted.

"Look here!" exclaimed Lethbridge, holding out for inspection a crystal as large as a pigeon's egg; "what think you of that for a first find? And it is of the first water, too."

The baronet took it in his hand and examined it critically. Then he handed it back with the remark:

"Well, my dear fellow, I am no judge of diamonds, at least in their natural uncut state; but if your supposition—that you have discovered a 'bed' or 'pocket,' or whatever you call it, of diamonds—be correct, I most heartily congratulate you."

"You—congratulate—me?" gasped the colonel. "Why, my dear Elphinstone, what on earth do you mean? I am much obliged for your congratulations, certainly; but whether the diamonds here be many or few, we shall of course all share alike, so you may also congratulate yourself and our absent friends at the same time. And as to my supposition being correct, I have had too much experience at the South African diamond-fields to make a mistake in such a matter. Why," he continued, looking round and picking up two or three more stones, "they are positively sown broadcast just here—an hour's diligent work in this spot will make us all rich beyond the power of computation."

"If that be the case," returned the baronet, "then here goes to help you. But, mind, I am a rich man already; and not a single stone will I accept until all three of you are perfectly satisfied that you have abundantly sufficient for all your requirements."

"Very well," said the colonel. "Go ahead with that understanding if you like. I feel pretty confident that, even upon such terms, you will be able to take back to England, if all goes well, sufficient gems to make the future Lady Elphinstone—should there ever be such a personage—a diamond suite which shall cause her to be the envied of all beholders."

Sir Reginald laughed gleefully. "I have never yet met a woman charming enough to induce me to yield up my freedom of action and movement for her sake, and I do not think it likely I ever shall," he said.

Lethbridge shook his head a little doubtfully, but he was just then so busy digging down into the gravel with his hunting-knife that he had no breath to waste in the words of a disclaimer.

The baronet moved away to a distance of some twenty feet, and began poking about the gravel in a very careless, half-hearted sort of way, occasionally picking up and slipping into one of his capacious pockets such crystals as he thought likely to be of value.

Half an hour of this work sufficed him; and, rising to his feet, he cried: "Spell, ho! as our friend Mildmay would probably observe. Now, Lethbridge," as he sauntered up to his companion, "let us compare the results of our labour."

With this he flung himself down upon the gravel, and, plunging his hand into his pocket three or four times, produced a goodly little heap of gems of all sizes, ranging from that of a pea up to stones of fully one ounce in weight. Meanwhile the colonel brought his collection to light, and a very fine one it was, the stones being nearly twice as many as those gathered by the baronet, though many of them were much smaller.

"Is that all?" asked Sir Reginald.

"All?" echoed Lethbridge; "why, my dear sir, what would you have? If, after we have quite exhausted the ground here, my share amounts to such a handsome collection as this, I can assure you I shall be exceedingly well satisfied. You have made a most excellent haul too, but I think mine is the more valuable of the two."

"Perhaps," said the baronet, "this will go some way toward equalising our finds." And as he spoke he quietly slipped his hand into his pocket and smilingly produced a stone fully as large as a hen's egg.

The colonel took it into his hands and critically examined it for several minutes. It was most unmistakably a diamond, and that, too, of the very finest water, without the faintest trace of a flaw of any kind. He remained silent so long that Sir Reginald grew impatient and finally blurted out:

"Well, man, what is it? Is it a diamond, or is it merely a worthless piece of crystal? Why don't you speak?"

"Simply," said the colonel as he took a final look at it against the light and then handed it back, "because I am at a loss for words to express my admiration. It is a diamond, and, so far as I know, the finest that has ever yet been brought to light. Its value must be simply fabulous, and I heartily congratulate you on its discovery. Where did you find it? Was it deep in the gravel?"

"Come with me and I'll show you," was the reply; and, leading the colonel back to the spot, Sir Reginald quietly pointed to a hole about eighteen inches deep which he had excavated, and wherein lay, side by side, seven other gems equally as fine as the one he had produced.

"Help yourself, my dear fellow," he said with a laugh, "and then let us be moving; we have our dinner to find yet, you know."

Lethbridge fairly gasped for breath as his eyes first fell upon the magnificent jewels; but he lost no time in transferring them to his pocket, and then he turned to the baronet and asked what would be the best thing for them to do next.

"Let us simply continue our journey," answered the baronet. "Of course if these stones which we have found are really diamonds, which I do not doubt, since you assure me that they are, I am as fully alive as yourself to the fact that a mine of incalculable wealth lies here at our feet. But it will not run away within the next few days. Let us finish our exploration and return to the Flying Fish. We will then move her to this spot, and all hands of us can then go to work at diamond-hunting in good earnest. Meanwhile, if these large stones are of such inestimable value, it seems to me that they are likely to prove, after all, practically valueless, for the simple reason that nobody will be found willing to spend the enormous sum which would enable him to become a purchaser."

"That is very true," answered the colonel with a laugh. "The stones of moderate size are what we must hope to realise upon; nevertheless, I shall not pass over such large ones as may happen to thrust themselves under my notice, for if we should fail to dispose of them, they will still come in handy as ornaments for our future wives, in which, notwithstanding a remark you made a little while ago, I somehow have a profound belief. Now, if you are ready to march, so am I."

The pair accordingly shouldered their guns, and, turning their backs for the time being upon the diamond mine, continued their course down the valley.

Half an hour later a herd of reindeer was discovered browsing upon the lichens and mosses which grew plentifully on the rocky spurs of the range of hills from which the travellers were now emerging, and one of these was soon afterwards killed with little or no difficulty by means of a bullet from one of the rifles. To such experienced hunters as Sir Reginald and the colonel the task of "breaking up" the deer was an easy one, and, that done, they went into camp on the spot, and feasted royally that night upon reindeer tongue and marrow-bones.

The two following days passed uneventfully, that is to say the travellers met with no adventure specially worth recording. They passed through extensive tracts of pine forest, and saw plenty of game, to say nothing of such valuable fur-bearing animals as the sable and ermine, both of which animals seemed to be extraordinarily abundant, and late on the evening of the third day they found themselves at the base of the table-land, after a somewhat fatiguing but most enjoyable tramp.

The next day was devoted to a thorough examination of the somewhat remarkable object which they had set out to visit. It proved to be an enormous mass of rock, nearly circular in shape, about three miles in circumference, and towering aloft from the surface of the surrounding plain to a height of between three and four thousand feet, as nearly as could be measured without the aid of instruments. Their idea had of course been not only to reach this enormous rock, but also to ascend to its summit, but this they found to be quite impracticable, a journey round it demonstrating the fact that on all sides its cliffs rose perpendicularly and without a single break from the base to the flat summit. For that time at least they were defeated; but when they finally turned their backs upon "Mount Mildmay," as they determined to name it, it was with a fixed resolve that, before many days were over, they would reach the summit with the aid of the Flying Fish.

Their journey back to the ship was marked by no more noteworthy incident than the sighting in the distance of a herd of mammoths, apparently the identical animals with which they had already had an encounter. They followed a somewhat different route from their outward one, making a detour round the group of hills which inclosed the "Schalckenberg Geyser," and arrived at the ship late on the evening of the sixth day from their departure, weary and somewhat foot-sore it is true, but in all other respects in the very best of health, and with thoroughly pleasant memories of their journey.

They were of course welcomed with open arms by the two friends they had left behind them. Mildmay, under the professor's skilful treatment, was rapidly advancing toward complete recovery; and as for the scientist himself, he was jubilant in the highest degree over the fact that he had been thoroughly successful in his preparation of that gigantic "specimen," the mammoth. A great deal of desultory conversation of course took place within the first hour of the wanderers' return; but at last the party settled down, and then followed a recital by Sir Reginald of the particulars of the journey. Both the professor and Mildmay were of course intensely interested in the story, but in different ways. Mildmay's interest was merely that of the ordinary travelled man of culture, but von Schalckenberg was disposed to regard everything from the scientist's view-point, and incessantly broke the continuity of the narrative by a whole string of questions which neither Sir Reginald nor the colonel could possibly answer. He was extravagantly delighted with both the description of the geyser and the sight of the diamonds, and it was difficult to say which pleased him most; perhaps the most gratifying circumstance to him was the information that the geyser had been named after him, at all events he begged most pathetically that the projected visit to this most interesting object might be allowed to take precedence of that to the diamond mine.

Such being the case, it will readily be understood that no pen of mere ordinary graphic power could hope to adequately portray the ecstasy of enthusiasm with which the worthy man, two days later, actually viewed the geyser itself from so advantageous a stand-point as the deck of the Flying Fish; such a task is utterly beyond the powers of the present narrator and must be left to the vivid imagination of the indulgent reader. For over two hours did that amiable and learned scientist sit immovably in his deck chair with a meerschaum of abnormal dimensions in his mouth, and with his eyes beaming in a rapt admiration, which was almost adoration, upon the magnificent spectacle; and it was not until he had been solemnly assured by the others that he would be excused from all participation in the task of diamond-hunting and have full liberty to return to the geyser and spend there the whole of the time during which the rest of the party might be so engaged, that he consented to leave the spot at all.

Three days were spent at the diamond mine; and, with the aid of proper tools obtained from the ship, this time proved sufficient for the accumulation of such a hoard of priceless gems as would, if disposed of at even half their market value, realise a magnificent fortune for each of the lucky finders.

The next move was to the summit of the flat tableland, which was of course easily reached by the Flying Fish. It proved to be, as had already been surmised, merely an enormous mass of bare rock, without a scrap of soil or vegetation of any kind about its surface, and useful only as a citadel, into which, had it been planted in some more accessible spot on the earth's surface, it would undoubtedly have been converted, in which case it would have eclipsed even Gibraltar itself in the matter of impregnability. Useless as it was, however, where it stood, its summit afforded an admirable look-out; and from that point of vantage the travellers made the discovery that "Elphinstone Land" was an island, the horizon at that elevation being bounded by the sea on every side. The rock was roughly circular in shape, with a circumference of about three miles, and the travellers made the circuit of the summit in about an hour and a half, pausing at frequent intervals to admire and enjoy the magnificent panorama of woods and hills and streams which lay spread out beneath them. Herds of elk, reindeer, and musk-oxen were seen dotted about here and there on the plains below, as well as a skulking wolf or two, a few Arctic foxes, and other wild animals. The herd of mammoths—apparently the only herd in the island—was also seen; and, with the aid of their telescopes, the travellers were also able to make out, far away at sea, certain dark moving spots which, from their alternate appearance above and disappearance beneath the surface, they judged to be whales.

The chief business of the travellers, however, on the summit of "Mount Mildmay" was to ascertain whether or no the North Pole of the earth was or was not situated within its circumference. This was rightly regarded as a matter of such great importance that several days were unhesitatingly devoted to its settlement; and Mildmay, the professor, and Colonel Lethbridge were busy from breakfast time in the morning until dinner-time at night, making the most careful observations and working out the necessary calculations. These were at length satisfactorily completed—not one moment too soon, for the sun was daily dropping nearer and nearer to the horizon—and the trio were enabled, not only to say that the North Pole was contained within the limits of the summit, but to plant their feet upon it and to say unhesitatingly and authoritatively:

"This is the North Pole!"

The position having thus been accurately determined, the next thing was to mark the spot.

With this object a large triangle was first described about it, and a point was carefully marked off on each of its sides in such a position that a line tightly strained from such point to the opposite angle of the triangle would pass directly through the pole. This done, an excavation six feet deep in the solid rock was made, and in its bottom was deposited a tightly-sealed bottle containing a small parchment scroll, on which was inscribed a brief statement of the circumstances connected with the discovery of the spot, with the date, and the signatures of the joint discoverers. This bottle was carefully packed in and buried up with small fragments of rock, and made finally secure by a covering of excellent concrete, the materials for compounding which had been carefully and with infinite labour prepared by the professor. Then, when the concrete had become properly hardened, a substantial flagstaff of aethereum was stepped into the hole in a position accurately corresponding with the North Pole of the earth, and also made secure by being built in or "set" in concrete, which completely filled the hole. The professor next, with the aid of a diamond, engraved on the staff, in bold conspicuous characters, at a height of five feet from the ground, the words:

"This staff marks the exact position of the North Pole of the earth." And finally, amid cheers from the rest of the party, Sir Reginald Elphinstone ran the Union Jack up to the staff head and knotted the halliards so that it would remain there, thus formally claiming for the British nation the honour of actual discovery.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

SOUTHWARD HO!

So important a matter as the localisation of the Pole having thus been satisfactorily disposed of, it was next resolved to effect a thorough exploration of the entire island, including its circumnavigation. This, with the aid of the Flying Fish, was pretty effectually accomplished in a fortnight, after which the ship returned to her original anchorage in the harbour, on the south side of the island, now named Lethbridge Cove.

Both the forests and the adjacent waters of this favoured hyperborean land were found to be literally swarming with game and other animals, some of which afforded in their flesh a welcome change from the preserved meats with which the ship's larder was stocked, whilst the chief value of others lay in their "pelts" or skins; and, the hydrographic features of the island having been carefully ascertained and recorded, the party, with the exception of von Schalckenberg, now gave themselves up unreservedly to the pleasures of the chase. The professor's tastes lay more in the direction of geology, mineralogy, and botany, though he was also an enthusiastic naturalist, and thus, whilst he sallied forth every morning armed with gun, hammer, specimen box for his botanical treasures, and bag for his minerals, the three others went their several ways, either armed with traps and guns in search of game, or in one of the boats, duly provided with dredger, net, and line, in quest of ocean spoils.

Thus employed, the short remainder of the Arctic summer swiftly passed away; the sun daily sank nearer and nearer the horizon; the temperature fell; frost made its appearance, hardening the soil beneath the tread and coating the pools and puddles and morasses with an ever-thickening sheet of ice and the vegetation with a delicate tracery of silver; and at length the day came when the anchor was lifted and the Flying Fish moved some few miles out to sea to enable her occupants to witness the final disappearance of the sun beneath the southern horizon. Some anxiety had been experienced by the travellers for the last few days, as clouds had been gathering in the sky, with every indication of a speedy change of weather, and it was feared that the sight, which they had long been promising themselves, would, after all, be denied them; but at the last moment, or rather at the last hour, fortune proved favourable to them; the cloud-bank broke up along the south-western horizon, the vapours grouped themselves into a series of imposingly picturesque masses, all aflame with the most gorgeous tints of sunset, and from a little after eleven o'clock until shortly after noon the thin golden upper edge of the luminary's disc was visible sweeping imperceptibly along the purple horizon, until finally, as it reached the point of disappearance, it glimmered feebly for a moment, and, whilst the travellers stood watching it bare-headed, sank out of sight. The Arctic day was over, and the six months of night and winter had set in. Not, it must be understood, that darkness set in immediately—far from it; for several succeeding days there ensued a weird, delicious, magic, and ever-deepening twilight; but by the eighth day after the sun's final disappearance this also had vanished, and night reigned with undisputed sway.