we made time, now. we were not creeping up-stream, delayed by slow-moving barges. we were going with the tide and all handicaps had been removed. in less than thirty hours, including all stops, we had covered the distance that it had taken us days to ascend, and camped once more in the violet fields above the rapids. i had taken an observation at this point, and by taking another now i was able from the position of the sun and a reference to my charts to establish the date and, approximately, the hour. my calculation showed that it was november the ninth. seven weeks had elapsed since our departure from the billowcrest. it seemed as many ages.
the purple flowers that had welcomed us to the enchanted land were withered, but their leaves remained, and in every direction showed as a level carpet of green. reaching the rapids we once more removed our boat from the water. the snow on the hillside was gone, but we trundled our craft down over the bare rock and shale without serious 294difficulty, and launched it again in the swift current below. neither was there any snow on the barren lands ahead as far as we could see, and it was not until some hours later that it began to show along the banks.
the ice, too, seemed entirely gone from the river, but as the snow deepened along the shores we knew we must ere long reach the point where the current plunged beneath the eternal barrier into that darksome passage by which so many of the antarctic dead had found their way to the land of the silent cold.
the walls of ice and snow on either side of us deepened rapidly. soon we were sweeping through a chill canyon down whose glittering sides dashed crystal streams from the melting snow above. here and there appeared places by which it seemed possible to ascend to the snow level, but no one as yet spoke of halting. it would mean the deserting of our boat, which three of us could hardly attempt to push up the homeward incline, and the bundling upon our backs of such supplies and comforts as we could carry, to toil with them across the drifted wastes that lay between us and the billowcrest. and at the end of that journey—if we ever reached the end—lay the huge perpendicular wall down which we must still find our way. in fact, neither our prospect nor our surroundings were conducive 295to conversation, and with the increasing cold, and the black, semi-transparent walls becoming rapidly loftier, we said not many words, and these in low voices, as if we were indeed among the dead.
“do you suppose any of their funeral boats ever get down those rapids without being upset?” whispered gale, at last.
“it is possible,” i said, “it is only a question of avoiding the rocks. no doubt many of them do. they are of course sunken in the tunnel afterwards. the tide must fill it for a good way up, you know.”
“nick,” said gale suddenly, “what would you think of us trying to go through that tunnel?”
i gave a great spasmodic shudder.
“don’t! i have already thought of it,” i managed to say. “it makes me ill!”
“but i mean it, nick,” persisted gale. “there can’t be more than a hundred and fifty miles of it, and it’s not so much colder inside than it is here. we’ve got our electric lamp ahead, and we could make it in seven or eight hours, the way we are going. if we can hit the tide right we might do it as easy as nothing. if we did, we’d be home for dinner. if we didn’t—well, nick, to talk right out in meeting, i don’t believe we’d have a bit more chance of getting home the other way, and a good deal longer misery before—before we quit trying. ain’t that so, now? what do you think, bill?”
296neither of us could reply immediately. the thought had lurked in the minds of all, but when put into words it was a bit staggering. yet the prospect of being, within a few hours, on the billowcrest with edith—for dinner, as her father put it—started the warm blood once more in my veins. perhaps the latter appealed to mr. sturritt also.
“i—i—that is—i’m with—er—the admiral,” he managed to say at last, “as usual.”
“and so am i,” i agreed. “we can only die once wherever we are, and it is better to take the chances where we will go all together, in a minute, and be carried somewhere near our friends, than to perish lingeringly one after another, away off up yonder in the snow.”
“that’s my ticket!” assented gale. “and anyway, our boat, some of it, will get through, with all these air-tight compartments, and we can put some messages in each one, so if any pieces are picked up the folks will know what became of us.”
we began doing this at once, for we felt that the entrance to the dark tunnel could not be far distant. the walls on either side were becoming very high, and in places drew inward alarmingly. the river was narrowing too, and was much swifter.
“we couldn’t get up, now, if we wanted to,” commented gale, presently, “and say, nick, there’s a bend just ahead.”
297but it was not a bend. the walls bent, truly, but they bent inward, and far above they joined. below was a depth of blackness into which our eyes could pierce but a little way.
it was the “passage of the dead!”
we hastily slackened our speed to consider a little. gale was making a calculation.
“it’s now ten o’clock,” he said, at last, “and as nearly as i can figure, the tide ought to be about half down in bottle bay. it’ll be low tide at—say one o’clock, and high tide again about seven, unless the wind’s blowing in there. that would bring the tide up earlier. what we want to do, nick, is not to waste a minute, so’s to get there if we can before the tide closes the entrance again.”
“why run that risk?” i shivered. “why not figure to get there at low tide?”
“because,” explained gale, “that tide don’t stop at the opening. it comes on up—perhaps a good ways. when it’s low tide there, there’s a high tide somewhere this side, and coming this way. i don’t know how fast, or how far it would come, or how far up it would close this passage. but somewhere we’ve probably got to meet that tide, and the farther up this way it is, the less likely it’ll be to rise higher than the ceiling.”
i had another spasmodic seizure at this suggestion. it amounted to almost a chill, in fact, and 298gale considerately waited until i was better. then he said:
“if we pass that tide all right, we’ll have a clear run for the entrance, and if i’ve counted the time right we ought to make it before it closes. of course if there’s a head wind, or our propeller gives out—why——”
“i know,” i said hastily, though with some attempt at calmness, “we wouldn’t get through.”
“oh, yes we would,” said gale cheerfully, “we’d get through all right, but we wouldn’t be worth picking up, afterwards.”
we were now at the entrance of the great tunnel. the ceiling above was a vast black arch, hollowed out by the warmer waters of the river, during its great freshets. at the opening it was very high, and the span above thin and crumbling, and hung with huge icicles. streams of water were pouring from it, and we had barely passed beneath when just behind there came the crash of falling fragments.
we were nearly upset by the upheaval of water, but were presently beyond the reach of this danger. we had turned on our light, and it threw a long white radiance ahead that dazzled back and forth, and up and down, between ice and water in a wonderful iridescence. the wide ceiling lowered rapidly until it was perhaps fifteen feet above our heads and 299seemed much closer. we remembered that at bottle bay it was less than ten, and the tides there rose very high.
we were running at full speed and the current was swift. our log showed that we were making twenty miles an hour. at this rate we believed that a little more than seven hours would bring us through. perhaps even less than that. in spite of the vault-like cold and stillness about us, we grew mildly cheerful.
“nick,” said gale, “we’re going home in style. what do you suppose johnnie and biff will say, if they happen to see us pop out into bottle bay, as if we’d been shot out of a gun?”
the prospect seemed almost too joyful to consider.
gale, meantime, had opened one of the compartments, and brought forth a small flask containing what was left of our supply of brandy. he held it up to the light.
“just about one apiece,” he commented cheerfully. “if we get through all right, we’ll have plenty more. if we don’t we won’t need it. what is hope without a high-ball? age before beauty, bill, you first.”
mr. sturritt shook his head. i think he seldom tasted liquors.
“i—er—i have a few of the brown lozenges,” 300he explained. “they are very stim—that is—sustaining during cold, as you remember.”
“what’s that ahead, nick?” gale asked suddenly.
there was an outline in the light over our bow that stopped all tendency to mirth. it was that of a canoe, and presently when we swept by it, we got a glimpse of a white, dead face within.
silently gale once more extended toward mr. sturritt the depleted flask. this time he did not refuse.
