"Not at all, commander," answered Wall, looking over the side. "Hallo!
Here are the men coming back again. They are climbing the ship"s side as if the devil was at their heels."
"What the deuce can it be?" cried Shandon, rushing forward.
"On board! On board!" cried the terrified sailors.
Shandon looked in a northerly direction, and shuddered in spite of himself. A strange animal, with appalling movements, whose foaming tongue emerged from enormous jaws, was leaping about at a cable"s length from the ship. In appearance he seemed to be about twenty feet high, with hair like bristles; he was following up the sailors, whilst his formidable tail, ten feet long, was sweeping the snow and throwing it up in thick whirlwinds. The sight of such a monster riveted the most daring to the spot.
"It"s a bear!" said one.
"It"s the Gevaudan beast!"
"It"s the lion of the Apocalypse!"
Shandon ran to his cabin for a gun he always kept loaded. The doctor armed himself, and held himself in readiness to fire upon an animal which, by its dimensions, recalled the antediluvian quadrupeds. He neared the ship in immense leaps; Shandon and the doctor fired at the same time, when, suddenly, the report of their firearms, shaking the atmospheric stratum, produced an unexpected effect. The doctor looked attentively, and burst out laughing.
"It"s the refraction!" he exclaimed.
"Only the refraction!" repeated Shandon. But a fearful exclamation from the crew interrupted them.
"The dog!" said Clifton.
"The dog, captain!" repeated all his comrades.
"Himself!" cried Pen; "always that cursed brute."
They were not mistaken--it was the dog. Having got loose from his shackles, he had regained the surface by another crevice. At that instant the refraction, through a phenomenon common to these lat.i.tudes, caused him to appear under formidable dimensions, which the shaking of the air had dispersed; but the vexatious effect was none the less produced upon the minds of the sailors, who were very little disposed to admit an explanation of the fact by purely physical reasons. The adventure of the Devil"s Thumb, the reappearance of the dog under such fantastic circ.u.mstances, gave the finishing touch to their mental faculties, and murmurs broke out on all sides.
CHAPTER XII
CAPTAIN HATTERAS
The _Forward_, under steam, rapidly made its way between the ice-mountains and the icebergs. Johnson was at the wheel. Shandon, with his snow spectacles, was examining the horizon, but his joy was of short duration, for he soon discovered that the pa.s.sage ended in a circus of mountains. However, he preferred going on, in spite of the difficulty, to going back. The dog followed the brig at a long distance, running along the plain, but if he lagged too far behind a singular whistle could be distinguished, which he immediately obeyed. The first time this whistle was heard the sailors looked round about them; they were alone on deck all together, and no stranger was to be seen; and yet the whistle was again heard from time to time.
Clifton was the first alarmed.
"Do you hear?" said he. "Just look how that animal answers when he hears the whistle."
"I can scarcely believe my eyes," answered Gripper.
"It"s all over!" cried Pen. "I don"t go any further."
"Pen"s right!" replied Brunton; "it"s tempting G.o.d!"
"Tempting the devil!" replied Clifton. "I"d sooner lose my bounty money than go a step further."
"We shall never get back!" said Bolton in despair.
The crew had arrived at the highest pitch of insubordination.
"Not a step further!" cried Wolsten. "Are you all of the same mind?"
"Ay! ay!" answered all the sailors.
"Come on, then," said Bolton; "let"s go and find the commander; I"ll undertake the talking."
The sailors in a tight group swayed away towards the p.o.o.p. The _Forward_ at the time was penetrating into a vast circus, which measured perhaps 800 feet in diameter, and with the exception of one entrance--that by which the vessel had come--was entirely closed up.
Shandon said that he had just imprisoned himself; but what was he to do? How were they to retrace their steps? He felt his responsibility, and his hand grasped the telescope. The doctor, with folded arms, kept silent; he was contemplating the walls of ice, the medium alt.i.tude of which was over 300 feet. A foggy dome remained suspended above the gulf. It was at this instant that Bolton addressed his speech to the commander.
"Commander!" said he in a trembling voice, "we can"t go any further."
"What do you say?" replied Shandon, whose consciousness of disregarded authority made the blood rise to the roots of his hair.
"Commander," replied Bolton, "we say that we"ve done enough for that invisible captain, and we are decided to go no further ahead."
"You are decided?" cried Shandon. "You talk thus, Bolton? Take care!"
"Your threats are all the same to us," brutally replied Pen; "we won"t go an inch further."
Shandon advanced towards the mutineers; at the same time the mate came up and said in a whisper: "Commander, if you wish to get out of here we haven"t a minute to lose; there"s an iceberg drifting up the pa.s.s, and it is very likely to cork up all issue and keep us prisoners."
Shandon examined the situation.
"You will give an account of your conduct later on, you fellows,"
said he. "Now heave aboard!"
The sailors rushed to their posts, and the _Forward_ quickly veered round; the fires were stuffed with coals; the great question was to outrun the floating mountain. It was a struggle between the brig and the iceberg. The former, in order to get through, was running south; the latter was drifting north, ready to close up every pa.s.sage.
"Steam up! steam up!" cried Shandon. "Do you hear, Brunton?"
The _Forward_ glided like a bird amidst the struggling icebergs, which her prow sent to the right-about; the brig"s hull shivered under the action of the screw, and the manometer indicated a prodigious tension of steam, for it whistled with a deafening noise.
"Load the valves!" cried Shandon, and the engineer obeyed at the risk of blowing up the ship; but his despairing efforts were in vain. The iceberg, caught up by an undercurrent, rapidly approached the pa.s.s.
The brig was still about three cables" length from it, when the mountain, entering like a corner-stone into the open s.p.a.ce, strongly adhered to its neighbours and closed up all issue.
"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who could not retain the imprudent words.
"Lost!" repeated the crew.
"Let them escape who can!" said some.
"Lower the sh.o.r.e boats!" said others.
"To the steward"s room!" cried Pen and several of his band, "and if we are to be drowned, let"s drown ourselves in gin!"