The Great White Way; - free ebook by Albert Bigelow Paine

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The Great White Way;

Albert Bigelow Paine

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41 chapters

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ OF THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ OF THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

Nicholas Chase , a young man with a dream of discovery, and an inherited love of the sea. Chauncey Gale , a merry millionaire, with a willingness to back his judgment. Edith Gale , his daughter, a girl with accomplishments and ideas. Zar , colored maid and former nurse of Edith Gale. A woman with no “fool notions” about the South Pole. Ferratoni , an Italian electrician with wireless communication, and subtle psychic theories. Captain Joseph Biffer , Master of the Billowcrest. An old salt, with

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I. ANSWER TO AN OLD SUMMONS.

I. ANSWER TO AN OLD SUMMONS.

For more than ten generations my maternal ancestors have been farers of the sea, and I was born within call of high tide. At the distance of a thousand miles inland it still called me, and often in childhood I woke at night from dreams of a blue harbor with white sails. It is not strange, therefore, that I should return to the coast. When, at the age of thirty, I found myself happily rid of a commercial venture—conducted for ten years half-heartedly and with insignificant results—it was only nat

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II. I RENEW AN OLD DREAM.

II. I RENEW AN OLD DREAM.

Perhaps first of all I wished to visit the South Pole—not an unreasonable ambition it would seem for one backed by ten generations of sea captains and ocean faring—but one that I found not altogether easy to gratify. For one thing, there was no Antarctic expedition forming at the time; and then, my notions in the matter were not popular. From boyhood it had been my dream that about the earth’s southern axis, shut in by a precipitous wall of ice, there lay a great undiscovered world. Not a bleak

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III. EVEN SEEKING TO REALIZE IT.

III. EVEN SEEKING TO REALIZE IT.

But scientists, I was grieved to find, took very little stock in these views. Even such as were willing to listen declared that the earth’s oblation counted for nothing. Most of them questioned the existence of a great central heat—some disputed it altogether. The currents and temperatures reported by Nansen, Borchgrevink and others, they ascribed, as nearly as I can remember, to centrifugal deflections, to gravitatory adjustments—to anything, in fact, rather than what seemed to me the simple an

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IV. TURNING TO THE SEA, AT LAST, FOR SOLACE.

IV. TURNING TO THE SEA, AT LAST, FOR SOLACE.

Having thus met only with rebuff and disaster in the places where it seemed to me I had most reason to expect welcome and encouragement, I turned for comfort to those who, like my forbears, went down to the sea in ships. Along South Street, where the sky shows through a tangle of rigging, and long bowsprits threaten to poke out windows across the way, I forgot my defeats and even, for a time, my purpose, as I revelled in my long-delayed heritage of the sea. It was the ships from distant ports th

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V. I OVERHAUL THE STEAM YACHT, BILLOWCREST.

V. I OVERHAUL THE STEAM YACHT, BILLOWCREST.

It was early spring when I had arrived in New York, and the summer heat had begun to wane when I first set eyes on the Billowcrest, and its owner, Chauncey Gale. On one of those cool mornings that usually come during the first days of August I was taking a stroll up Riverside Drive. Below me lay the blue Hudson, and at a little dock just beyond Grant’s Tomb a vessel was anchored. Looking down on her from above it was evident, even to my unprofessional eye, that she was an unusual craft. Her hull

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VI. WHERE ALL THINGS BECOME POSSIBLE.

VI. WHERE ALL THINGS BECOME POSSIBLE.

We passed out into the dining saloon—a counterpart, I learned later, of the dining-room in Mr. Gale’s former cottage at Hillcrest. We were presently joined by a stout and grizzled man of perhaps sixty, with a slight sinister obliquity in one eye. He was arrayed in a handsome blue uniform, and was presented to me as Mr. Joseph Biffer, captain of the Billowcrest. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Mr. Sturritt was also to be with us. The customs on the Billowcrest, as I presently learned, were

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VII. I LEARN THE WAY OF THE SEA, AND ENTER MORE FULLY INTO MY HERITAGE.

VII. I LEARN THE WAY OF THE SEA, AND ENTER MORE FULLY INTO MY HERITAGE.

The sun lifting higher above Long Island touched the spray under the bow and turned it into a little rainbow that traveled on ahead. I leaned far out to watch this pleasant omen of fortune, endeavoring meanwhile to realize something of the situation, now that we were finally under way and the years of youth and waiting, of empty dreams and disappointments, lay all behind. It had been a week to be remembered. A whirl of racing from ship to shop, and from shop to factory—of urging and beseeching o

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VIII. THE HALCYON WAY TO THE SOUTH.

VIII. THE HALCYON WAY TO THE SOUTH.

A cold plunge next morning in water combed up from the very bottom of the sea was my final baptismal ceremony. Fully restored I hastened on deck. Chauncey and Edith Gale were already there, walking briskly up and down, and I joined in the joyous march. A faint violet bank showed on the western horizon. Looking through a glass I could see that it was solid and unchanging in outline. It was land, they explained; we were off Cape Charles, and would pass Hatteras during the afternoon. I remembered a

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IX. ADMONITION AND COUNSEL.

IX. ADMONITION AND COUNSEL.

Our progress southward was hurried. We had touched at Charleston for a full supply of coal, but we were sailing under canvas only. It was still bleak winter below Cape Horn, and we did not wish to enter those somber seas before November, the beginning of the Antarctic spring. Sometimes Edith Gale and I drew steamer chairs to the extreme bow of the boat, and looking away to the horizon, imagined the land of our quest lying just beyond. At night, from this point, we watched the new constellations

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X. CAPTAIN BIFFER IS ASSISTED BY THE PAMPEIRO.

X. CAPTAIN BIFFER IS ASSISTED BY THE PAMPEIRO.

Southward, and still southward. We crossed the equator under light steam, for there was no wind and it was too warm to lie becalmed, even in that mystical, lotus-breathing sea. Our world was turned around, now. We were going back to the year’s beginning, and springtime lay at the end of our bow-sprit. The Big Dipper and the North Star were ours no longer; the Southern Cross had become our beacon and our hope. The sun and moon were still with us, but even these had fallen behind and it was to the

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XI. IN GLOOMY SEAS.

XI. IN GLOOMY SEAS.

In entering the waters below Cape Horn it had been my plan to continue southward not farther than the northern extremity of the South Shetland Islands, thence to bear off in a southwesterly course until the outer edge of the field—or pack-ice—had been reached. This ice fringe would, I believed, begin somewhat north of the Antarctic Circle, not lower than the sixty-fifth parallel—possibly much higher. It would recede before the warm sun of December—the month answering to our northern June. My con

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XII. WHERE CAPTAIN BIFFER REVISES SOME OPINIONS.

XII. WHERE CAPTAIN BIFFER REVISES SOME OPINIONS.

I went up on the bridge one morning to find Captain Biffer gazing intently through the glass at some distant object. “There’s your South Shetlands,” he announced, as I approached, “Elephant Island, I should say. Looks pretty cold to me.” I did not reply for a moment, but stood looking out over the black tossing waters that lie below Cape Horn. Somewhere it was, in this cold expanse, that my uncle’s vessel was believed to have gone down. Here, amid the crash of storm and surge, she had been last

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XIII. IN THE “FIGHTING-TOP.”

XIII. IN THE “FIGHTING-TOP.”

Our crow’s nest became at once the nucleus of the expedition. Edith Gale named it our “fighting-top” because of the fierce discussions that took place there. This warfare concerning the new objects that appeared daily on our horizon was almost continual, and when not actively engaged in the combats, I was supposed to adjust them. They occurred most frequently between Edith Gale and her father, both of whom delighted in our lookout, and remained with me there a greater part of the time, in spite

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XIV. AN EXCURSION AND AN EXPERIMENT.

XIV. AN EXCURSION AND AN EXPERIMENT.

“Well, here we are,” announced Captain Biffer, as we grouped together on the deck to survey the scene. “And here we’re likely to stay for one while, I’m thinking. This is your warm world—how do you like it?” “Better than a cold sea,” I said, “when there’s a northeast gale blowing.” “How long do we lay up here, Chase?” asked Chauncey Gale. “You’re running this excursion.” I was secretly uneasy, but I made light of the situation. “Oh, this is the usual thing. We’ll be here a day or two, perhaps, t

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XV. AS REPORTED BY MY NOTE-BOOK.

XV. AS REPORTED BY MY NOTE-BOOK.

If we were more fearless now, we were also more careful. Our faith in the Billowcrest was complete, but we profited by experience. At the next indication of bad weather, we headed northward in time, and rode out the storm at sea. I think Captain Biffer had hoped that we would abandon our project after the ice squeeze, but Christmas Day found us far to the westward, and still creeping slowly along the edge of the ice-fields. Our days were a never-ending glory now, for it was midsummer, and of goo

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XVI. FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.

XVI. FOLLOWING THE PACEMAKER.

For a full month we drifted slowly with our monster berg. So slowly that at times, when the wind shifted, we were almost at a standstill, and the drift-ice was ready to shut us in. But within our big giant’s lap we were well protected, and lying idly were borne steadily to the south. We grew presently to love our big protector, and had the Captain’s name of Pacemaker not clung to him we should have christened him something very grand, indeed. For as a pacemaker he was not a success. An average o

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XVII. INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERY.

XVII. INVESTIGATION AND DISCOVERY.

Our days grew shorter rapidly. In the fading light we made haste to examine our surroundings with care, and to make sure that we could not find a still better location for the long winter ahead. When the water outside was clear of ice we cruised in the launch along the barrier to make what Chauncey Gale called “scientific developments.” We became convinced, soon, that our warm river formed at its mouth the only available retreat for the Billowcrest, and further, that this river, following up the

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XVIII. A “BORNING” AND A MYSTERY.

XVIII. A “BORNING” AND A MYSTERY.

One morning, a week after our arrival, as we sat at breakfast, we felt the Billowcrest suddenly rock beneath us, and a moment later there came a roar so mighty that it seemed the whole world must shudder with it. We looked at each other, our minds reverting to the moment of our arrival with the Pacemaker. But there was a difference in the sound. That had been a splitting, crashing terror. This also seemed the cry of a great rending asunder, but followed by a splendid, universal groan of peace. A

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XIX. A LONG FAREWELL.

XIX. A LONG FAREWELL.

And now indeed the shadows gathered and closed in about us. Already our day was but a brief period of mournful twilight. Soon there would be only a chill redness in the northern sky at midday. Then this too would leave us, and the electric glow of the Billowcrest would be our only cheer. With the coming of the dark, the friendly sea life—the penguins and the seals—vanished. They had visited us numerously during the early days of our arrival in Bottle Bay, and we did not realize what a comfort th

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XX. THE LONG DARK.

XX. THE LONG DARK.

I cannot attempt to picture the vast Antarctic Night. The words I have learned were never intended to convey the supreme mightiness of the Polar Dark. Chauncey Gale has referred to it as “Creation’s Cold Storage.” I am willing to let it go at that. In the electric blaze of the Billowcrest we made merry, and occupied ourselves usefully. When the cold without was not too severe we went snow-shoeing over Bottle Bay, where a crust of ice had eventually formed, and where snow grew ever deeper until w

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XXI. AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE.

XXI. AN ARRIVAL AND A DEPARTURE.

Curiously enough the sun made its first chill, brief reappearance on the anniversary of our sailing. Chill and brief it was, but that thin edge of light skirting the far northern horizon meant to all who saw it new hope, and a new hold on the realities of life. The sky there had for some time been growing redder each day, and more than once we believed that the Captain’s calculation would be proved at fault, and that the sun itself must appear. But the Captain’s mathematics were sound, and the s

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XXII. ON THE AIR-LINE, SOUTH.

XXII. ON THE AIR-LINE, SOUTH.

It is needless to say that in the few brief seconds required for these things to happen I did not continue the conversation with my fiancée. The reader will understand that I was busy—too busy even to listen to the advice that was coming through the telephone. At least I suppose it was advice—Miss Gale would naturally give advice on an occasion like that, and besides there was nothing else that she could have given, anyway. But as the instrument was at that moment swinging over the side of the c

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XXIII. THE CLOUDCREST MAKES A LANDING.

XXIII. THE CLOUDCREST MAKES A LANDING.

We were fully half a mile above the white world now, and greatly encouraged. If we could keep this up for several hours I believed we might get beyond the snow barrier, or at least to a point where the cold was less intense. Already it seemed to me that the air was less keen. We felt little or no wind as we were traveling with it, and while we had started our propeller and kept it going steadily it did not add enough to our speed to cause any perceptible current of air from ahead. By two o’clock

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XXIV. THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

XXIV. THE GREAT WHITE WAY.

Sept. 21. All day we have been pushing our boat-sleigh, and to-night we are between fifteen and twenty miles farther south than last. We made fairly good progress in spite of the drifts, because of the general down-slope, which in some places was such that we got into our boat and the wind carried us along. Gale and Ferratoni are fixing up a sail to use to-morrow. It will be rigged between two of the uprights, forward. The wings of our propeller were smashed in the fall. We are all very tired to

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XXV. WHERE THE WAY ENDS.

XXV. WHERE THE WAY ENDS.

But now came a great day. It began with a discovery. My pockets had been full of lozenges which I could not eat, and I had emptied them out on the snow. It seems, however, that I had left two in my coat pocket—a white one and a brown one. I had such a gnawing hunger after we started that when I felt these there, I put them both in my mouth together, thinking to hold them a moment and then take them out before they sickened me. But, strangely enough, they did not do so. As they dissolved I swallo

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XXVI. THE WELCOME TO THE UNKNOWN.

XXVI. THE WELCOME TO THE UNKNOWN.

And now came the day of days! Early in the morning we reloaded our boat, and set out eagerly. The wind helped us somewhat in our upward pull but it was a hard tug. Often we propped our load, and halted for breath. The hill seemed to grow longer as we ascended. “Nick,” said Gale, “I believe this is the South Pole, and that we’re climbing it.” “It isn’t quite that,” I said, “but it may be the end of the bare rocks and snow. I shouldn’t wonder if all this bare rock has had the dirt washed off by th

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XXVII. THE PRINCE OF THE PURPLE FIELDS.

XXVII. THE PRINCE OF THE PURPLE FIELDS.

I woke next morning to an odor even more inspiring than the smell of violets. There was that about it which at first made me distrust my senses. It seemed too good to be true—that searching, pervading, heavenly odor. I closed my eyes and opened them to make sure I was awake. Then it came again—more persistent than before—and with it a sputter and a crackle. It was! It was! I could not be deceived—it was frying fish! Gale, it seems, had risen early, upturned some insects and worms from under the

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XXVIII. A HARBOR OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS.

XXVIII. A HARBOR OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS.

Oct. 5. For seven days we have ascended this silent, flowing river, and to-night we rest in the palace of the Prince. At least we call him the Prince, though Ferratoni has explained to us that the word hardly carries the thought as conveyed to him. One whom the others follow and emulate, he thinks would be more exact, but this would mean prince, too, in our acceptation of the word, and so “Prince” he has become to us, and we would not wish for a better title for this fair serene youth, whose unv

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XXIX. A LAND OF THE HEART’S DESIRE.

XXIX. A LAND OF THE HEART’S DESIRE.

Oct. 12. This is the land of harmony. Here, shut in from the outer world by the crystal walls of the ages, rhythmic vibrations of the universe have blossomed in a fair, frail, almost supernatural life. Here the ideals of Ferratoni are the realities of the daily round, while the dreams of Edith Gale are but as the play language of little children. Here, shut away from the greed and struggle of the life we know—few in numbers and simple in their material needs, fragile and brief in their span of p

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XXX. THE LADY OF THE LILIES.

XXX. THE LADY OF THE LILIES.

And now, indeed, we are in the land of anodyne and oblivion. Once more we dream and forget, and the palace of the Prince dims out and fades, even as the barges that brought us drift back down the tide and disappear in the distant blue. Here is the world’s enchanted and perfumed casket, and here within it lies the world’s rarest jewel of sorcery—the Princess of the Lilied Hills. We have been here but a brief time—I no longer keep a record of the days—and we are bound hand and foot, as it were, by

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XXXI. THE POLE AT LAST.

XXXI. THE POLE AT LAST.

November ( ). At the top of the Temple of the Sun. I do not know the precise date, or the hour. Our watches have long since stopped, and there has been neither the desire nor the need to wind them. In a land where the sun slips round the sky, and for half a year no night cometh, the proper measure of time is of little matter. Neither have I continued the record of these notes, for I thought each day to visit this spot, and so waited. In the light of the Lily Princess we have lingered and drowse

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XXXII. AN OFFERING TO THE SUN.

XXXII. AN OFFERING TO THE SUN.

“Which way is north?” asked Gale, as we looked down at the huge compass-like carving. “All ways,” I said. “We are at the end of South, here. The center of that diagram is the spot we set out to reach. It is the South Pole.” Gale reflected on this a moment, and then with something of the old spirit said: “I’d like to know how anybody is ever going to lay out an addition here! Latitudes and longitudes, and directions, and hemispheres, all mixed up, and no difference in east and west fronts, or aft

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XXXIII. THE TOUCH OF LIFE.

XXXIII. THE TOUCH OF LIFE.

The music below grew fainter and died. Those with us upon the terrace remained silent, awaiting the pleasure of the Princess. When she spoke at last it was to Ferratoni, and then I noticed for the first time that he had brought, or caused to be brought, a little case which I recognized as one of his telephones. We had known that for the entertainment of the Princess he had been experimenting with his materials, and we realized that he was about to demonstrate from the elevation of the temple the

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XXXIV. THE PARDON OF LOVE.

XXXIV. THE PARDON OF LOVE.

In the Antarctic land, news is the one thing that travels fast. Thought still moves with comparative quickness there, and whatever lies in the mind of one is as though put on a bulletin board, to become the property of all. Through the darkness of the approaching storm we saw before we reached the foot of the stairway the gathering of many torches on the shore beyond. Evidently there was some unusual movement abroad which could not be wholly due to the coming tempest. In the gathering dusk I saw

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XXXV. DOWN THE RIVER OF COMING DARK.

XXXV. DOWN THE RIVER OF COMING DARK.

We were not pursued, or, if we were, we saw nothing of our pursuers. When the storm had all cleared away, we saw here and there people along the shore, but they did not offer to interfere with our flight. On the contrary, they seemed rather interested, and even pleased at our rate of speed. We believed that with the wedding ceremony of the Princess and Ferratoni the better nature of the race once more got the upper hand, and that they were satisfied to know that we were getting out of the countr

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XXXVI. THE “PASSAGE OF THE DEAD.”

XXXVI. THE “PASSAGE OF THE DEAD.”

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, th

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XXXVII. THE RISING TIDE.

XXXVII. THE RISING TIDE.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when we noticed that the ceiling seemed to be drawing nearer to our heads. The change was very gradual and at first we could not be sure. Then Gale said: “It’s getting closer, boys—there’s no doubt of it. We’re probably down to tide-water, and I believe we’re hitting it just about right—it can’t fill up along here.” We steered the boat toward the side of the passage and examined the ice closely as we passed. Then he indicated a faint line about three f

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XXXVIII. STORM AND STRESS.

XXXVIII. STORM AND STRESS.

Upon our voyage to the north I shall not dwell. I have neither the time nor the willingness to do so. The memory of those days is weird and depressing. I would cover with all speed the place they occupy in this history. From Bottle Bay we followed the great salt current eastward, as we did not believe it possible to work northward against it. For two days all went well, and we found happiness in our reunion and homeward progress. Then all the joyless misery of Antarctic lands and seas seemed to

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XXXIX. WHERE DREAMS BECOME REAL.

XXXIX. WHERE DREAMS BECOME REAL.

In the little hut which he had built, and where all the years he had lived alone, he told us his story. It was hardly more than a word. When the vessel went down, he had drifted with one other, on a spar, to this island. The other had died next day from exposure, and was buried not far away. And winter and summer for twenty-one years the survivor had waited for those who never came. At first he had hoisted the spar with a signal, but long since he had lost hope, and when at last a wind blew it d

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XL. CLAIMING THE REWARD.

XL. CLAIMING THE REWARD.

For three weeks the Billowcrest lay a prisoner off the South Shetlands—just which of these islands, I do not consider it proper at this time to say. Assisted by Chauncey and Edith Gale, my uncle and I put the treasure into bags and had it conveyed to the vessel as “mineral specimens,” for we felt that we could not wholly trust our crew. Then at length a wind from the northwest set the currents a new pace and altered the sand drift. We found ourselves afloat one morning, and crowding on sail and

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