, it was at seven bells in the second dog-watch that we espied the headlands of Captain Black's haven, and about an hour later when the wonderful shore became fully visible. Such a scene of solitude and grandeur a poet might not imagine; nor could I wonder that the spell of it put other thoughts from our minds and compelled us to pay silent homage to its majesty.
And here I would remind you that I had last looked upon this scene from the deck of the Nameless Ship, at an hour when the dead pirate set out to brave Europe and to sail to his destruction. All my thoughts had been of home and country then; a passionate desire to escape the bondage and to flee that dreadful company had possessed me. Now, for the first time, the grandeur of the home which Black had chosen became apparent to me, and I could tell with pride what hitherto I had named but with fear.
Imagine a wall of glittering schists; a vast cliff, limned, as it were, in jasper and chrysoprase and chalcedony; say that this jewelled rampart lifted a resolute face to the gentle waves of an Arctic sea; let the walls fall back by here and there to the curves of soft bays, all aglitter with rivers of solid ice, whence the bergs float down to the Atlantic. Do this, and set the towering caps of snowy mountains above them all, and you have the shores of Greenland as the crew of the Celsis first espied them, and as I who write looked upon them for the second time.
I shall not try to tell you of all that passed between us on the quarter-deck while we stood to watch this entrancing scene, and to speculate upon our good fortune in making the haven without fault.
A hundred questions were put to me and answered as readily. I told them how the giant headlands which guarded the entrance to the inner waters were more than a thousand feet high. I spoke of a monstrous chasm lying between an outer fiord and the great lake beyond. I promised them that they should visit Black's home with me and sleep in a house that surely had been one of the wonders of the world. And then, escaping from them for the ship's sake, I took Captain York apart and spoke to him of the anchorage and of what I knew of it.
"You have the Government chart," said I, "and will know more than I, Captain; but one thing is certain—we shall drop no anchor in the fiord, for it is more than a mile deep. Black used to warp the Nameless Ship against the northward cliff, and we ought to be able to pick his moorings up. If we don't, you may care to try the narrow passage, and make the lake beyond; but it's dangerous work, and we would lie more snugly in the outer basin if by any chance we find ourselves in company."
The Captain looked up under his shaggy eyebrows.
"Meaning if Jo Mitchell should be in?"
"Or any other Joe, Captain," said I, with a laugh.
He nodded his head.
"This is the end of the world, or looks something like it," he ran on. "But there'll be no Americans ashore, I'm thinking; and Jo Mitchell's not the man to be caught asleep. My glass has shown me a barren shore for the last half-hour or more. And that's to say we're lucky men, Mr. Mark, very lucky men indeed."
I could see that he was not a little excited at the thought, and that was natural enough. We had set out upon this voyage almost in a holiday spirit. Perhaps we had not really believed in the existence of any treasure at all—and now here we were, the masters of Ice Haven after all, free to search every nook and cranny of it, and to delude ourselves with those dreams which had sent us out of England. Do you wonder that my heart beat fast as I returned to the deck, and stood with Roderick and Mary to see the ship go in, and to know that the end was at hand?
We steamed very slowly at this time, passing the northernmost headland of the fiord so closely that a man could have tossed a biscuit to its shining crags. Everywhere a great glow of the sunlight searched out the wonders of the place and fell with blinding splendour upon the untrodden snow. We had now entered the great fiord, and the rocky walls rose up sheer on either hand. Not a sound save of the whirring wings of monstrous birds disturbed the stillness and solitude which knew man for the first time. The crew stood awed by its unknown mysteries. Even little Mary drew nearer to me and shuddered.
"You came here with Captain Black, did you not?" she asked me.
I said that it was so.
"But precious little I saw of the place then, Mary, for they had me a prisoner in the cabin, and no one but the mad Doctor came near me. Just think of it: of all that wild crew, he is the only one alive. Should not this be a place of spirits?"