The arrangement, as the doctor called it, was simple enough. Three pieces of coral, in the shape of a rose, a thistle, and shamrock, encased--nay, I may say enshrined--in a beautiful casket of crystal and gilded ebony. There was the milk-white rose of England and the blood-red thistle of Scotland side by side, and fondly twining around them the shamrock of old Ireland--all in black.
Here was the motto underneath them--
"Perseverando."
"There is nothing like perseverance," said Allan. "The little coral insect thereby builds islands, ay, and founds continents, destined to be stages on which will be worked out or fought out the histories of nations yet unborn. "Perseverando!" it is a grand and bold motto, and I love it."
The Frenchman had been standing before the casket; he now turned quickly round to Allan and held out his hand.
"You are a bold man," he said; "you will come with me to-day in de balloon?"
"I will," said Allan.
"We vill soar far above yonder mountain," continued De Vere; "we vill descend into the crater. We vill do vat mortal man has neever done before. Perseverando! Do you fear?"
"Fear?" said Allan; "no! I fear nothing under the sun. Whate"er a man dares he can do."
"Bravely spoken," cried the Frenchman. "Perseverando! I have room for two more."
"Perseverando!" says Rory. "Perseverando for ever! Hoorah! I"m one of you, boys."
Ralph was lying on the sofa, reading a book. But he doubled down a leaf, got up, and stretched himself.
"Here," he said, quietly, "you fellows mustn"t have all the fun; I"ll go toe, just to see fair play. But, I say," he added, after a moment"s pause, "I don"t suppose there will be any refreshment-stalls down there--eh?"
"No, that there won"t," cried Allan. "Hi! Peter, pack a basket for four."
"Ay, ay, sir?" said Peter.
"And, I say, Peter--" This from Ralph.
"Yes, sir," said the steward, pausing in the doorway.
"Enough for twenty," said Ralph. "That"s all, Peter."
"Thank"ee, sir," said Peter, laughing; "I"ll see to that, sir."
It was some time before De Vere succeeded in gaining Captain McBain"s consent to the embarkation of his boys on this wild and strange adventure, but he was talked over at last.
"It is all for the good of science, I suppose," he said, half doubtfully, as he shook hands with our heroes before they took their places in the car. "G.o.d keep you, boys. I"m not at all sure I"ll ever see one of you again."
The ropes were let go, and upwards into the clear air rose the mighty balloon.
"Here"s a lark," said Allan.
"A skylark," said Rory. "Let us sing, boys--let us sing as we soar, "Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.""
Standing on the quarter-deck, and gazing upwards, McBain heard the voices growing fainter and fainter, and saw the balloon lessening and lessening, till the song could no longer be heard, and the balloon itself was but a tiny speck in the heaven"s blue. Then he went down below, and busied himself all day with calculations. He didn"t want to think.
Meanwhile, how fared it with our boys? Here they were, all together, embarked upon as strange an expedition as it has ever probably been the lot of any youth or youths to try the chance of. Yet I do not think that anything approaching to fear found place in the hearts of one of them. The situation was novel in the extreme. With a slow and steady but imperceptible motion--for she was weightily ballasted--the "Perseverando," as they had named the balloon, was mounting skywards.
There was not the slightest air or wind, nor the tiniest of clouds to be seen anywhere, and down beneath and around them was spread out a panorama, which but to gaze upon held them spell-bound.
There was the island itself, with its rugged hills looking now so strangely flattened and so grotesquely contorted; to the west and to the north lay the white and boundless sea of ice, but far to the eastward and south was the ocean itself, looking dark as night in contrast with the solid ice.
But see, yonder, where the ice joins the water, and just a little way from its edge, lie stately ships--two, three, five in all can be counted, and their sails are all clewed; and those innumerable black ticks on the snow, what can they be but seals, and men sealing?
"Don"t you long to join them?" said Allan, addressing his companions.
"I don"t," replied Rory; "in spite of the cold I feel a strange, dreamy kind of happiness all over heart and brain. Troth! I feel as if I had breakfasted on lotus-leaves."
"And I," said Ralph, "feel as I hadn"t breakfasted on anything in particular. Let us see what Peter has done up for us."
And he stretched out his hand as he spoke towards a basket.
"Ah?" cried the Frenchman, "not dat basket; dat is my Bagdads--my pigeons, my letter-carriers! You see, gentlemen, I have come prepared to combat eevery deeficulty."
"So I see," said Ralph, coolly undoing the other basket; "what an appet.i.te the fresh air gives a fellow, to be sure!"
"Indeed," says Rory, archly, "it is never very far from home you"ve got to go for that same, big brother Ralph. But it"s hardly fair, after all, to try to eat the Bagdads."
"Remember one thing, though," replied Ralph; "if it should occur to me suddenly that you want your ears pulled you cannot run away to save yourself."
"Indeed," said Rory, "I don"t think that the frost has left any ears at all on me worth pulling, or worth speaking about either."
"Ha?" cried Allan, "that reminds me; I"ve got those face m.u.f.flers.
There! I"ll show you how to put one on. The fur side goes inside-- thus; now I have a hole to breathe through, and a couple of holes for vision."
"And a pretty guy you look!"
"Oh! bother the looks," responded Ralph, "let us all be guys. Give us a mask, old man."
They did feel more comfortable now that they had the masks on, and could gaze about them without the risk of being frozen.
The cold was intense; it was bitter.
"I"d beat my feet to keep them warm," said Rory, "if I didn"t think I"d beat the bottom of the car out. Then we"d all go fluttering down like so many kittywakes, and it"s Captain McBain himself that would be astounded to see us back so soon."
"Gentlemen," said the Frenchman, "we are right over the mouth of the crater. I shall now make descent, with your permission. Then it vill not be so cold."
"And is it inside the volcano," cries Rory, "you"d be taking us to warm us? Down into the crater, to toast our toes at Vulcan"s own fireside?
Sure, Captain De Vere, it is splicing the main-brace you"re after, for you want to give us all a drop of the craytur."
"Oh!--oh!" this from Ralph. "Oh! Rory--oh! how can you make so vile a pun? In such a situation, too!"
The gentlest of breezes was carrying the balloon almost imperceptibly towards the north and west; meanwhile De Vere was permitting a gradual escape of gas, and the _Perseverando_ sunk gradually towards the mountain-top, the mouth of which seemed to yawn to swallow them up.
There was a terrible earnestness about this daring aeronaut"s face that awed even Rory into silence.
"Stand by," he whispered; for in the dread silence even a whisper could be heard,--"stand by, Allan, to throw that bag of ballast over the moment I say the word."