On the 16th May, Mrs. Barnett and Madge were walking together on that part of the island between the former Cape Bathurst and Port Barnett. It was a fine warm day, and there had been no traces of snow on the ground for some time; all that recalled the bitter cold of the Polar regions were the relics left by the ice-wall on the northern part of the island; but even these were rapidly melting, and every day fresh waterfalls poured from their summits and bathed their sides. Very soon the sun would have completely dissolved every atom of ice.
Strange indeed was the aspect of Victoria Island. But for their terrible anxiety, the colonists must have gazed at it with eager interest. The ground was more prolific than it could have been in any former spring, transferred as it was to milder latitudes. The little mosses and tender flowers grew rapidly, and Mrs. Joliffe’s garden was wonderfully successful. The vegetation of every kind, hitherto checked by the rigour of the Arctic winter, was not only more abundant, but more brilliantly coloured. The hues of leaves and flowers were no longer pale and watery, but warm and glowing, like the sunbeams which called them forth. The arbutus, willow, birch, fir, and pine trees were clothed with dark verdure; the sap—sometimes heated in a temperature of 68° Fahrenheit-burst open the young buds; in a word, the Arctic landscape was completely transformed, for the island was now beneath the same parallel of latitude as Christiania or Stockholm, that is to say, in one of the finest districts of the temperate zones.
But Mrs. Barnett had now no eyes for these wonderful phenomena of nature. The shadow of the coming doom clouded her spirit. She shared the feeling of depression manifested by the hundreds of animals now collected round the factory. The foxes, martens, ermines, lynxes, beavers, muskrats, gluttons, and even the wolves, rendered less savage by their instinctive knowledge of a common danger, approached nearer and nearer to their old enemy man, as if man could save them. It was a tacit, a touching acknowledgment of human superiority, under circumstances in which that superiority could be of absolutely no avail.
No! Mrs. Barnett cared no longer for the beauties of nature, and gazed without ceasing upon the boundless, pitiless, infinite ocean with its unbroken horizon.
“Poor Madge!” she said at last to her faithful companion; “it was I who brought you to this terrible pass—you who have followed me everywhere, and whose fidelity deserved a far different recompense! Can you forgive me?”
“There is but one thing I could never have forgiven you,” replied Madge—“a death I did not share!”
“Ah, Madge!” cried Mrs. Barnett, “if my death could save the lives of all these poor people, how gladly would I die!”
“My dear girl,” replied Madge, “have you lost all hope at last?”
“I have indeed,” murmured Mrs. Barnett, hiding her face on Madge’s shoulder.
The strong masculine nature had given way at last, and Mrs. Barnett was for a moment a feeble woman. Was not her emotion excusable in so awful a situation?
Mrs. Barnett sobbed aloud, and large tears rolled down her cheeks.
Madge kissed and caressed her, and tried all she could to reassure her; and presently, raising her head, her poor mistress said—
“Do not tell them, Madge, how I have given way—do not betray that I have wept.”
“Of course not,” said Madge, “and they would not believe me if I did. It was but a moment’s weakness. Be yourself, dear girl; cheer up, and take fresh courage.”
“Do you mean to say you still hope yourself!” exclaimed Mrs. Barnett, looking anxiously into her companion’s face.
“I still hope!” said Madge simply.
But a few days afterwards, every chance of safety seemed to be indeed gone, when the wandering island passed outside the St. Matthew group, and drifted away from the last land in Bering Sea!
XX
In the Offing
Victoria Island was now floating in the widest part of Bering Sea, six hundred miles from the nearest of the Aleutian Islands, and two hundred miles from the nearest land, which was on the east. Supposing no accident happened, it would be three weeks at least before this southern boundary of Bering Sea could be reached.
Could the island last so long? Might it not burst open at any moment, subject as it was even now to the constant action of tepid water, the mean temperature of which was more than 50° Fahrenheit?
Lieutenant Hobson pressed on the construction of the raft as rapidly as possible, and the lower framework was already floating on the lagoon. Mac-Nab wished to make it as strong as possible, for it would have a considerable distance to go to reach the Aleutian Islands, unless they were fortunate enough to meet with a whaler.
No important alteration had lately taken place in the general configuration of the island. Reconaissances were taken everyday, but great caution was necessary, as a fracture of the ground might at any moment cut off the explorers from the rest of the party.
The wide gulf near Cape Michael, which the winter had closed, had reopened gradually, and now ran a mile inland, as far as the dried-up bed of the little river. It was probable that it was soon to extend to the bed itself, which was of course of little thickness, having been hollowed out by the stream. Should it do so, the whole district between Cape Michael and Port Barnett, bounded on the west by the river bed, would disappear—that is to say, the colonists would lose a good many square miles of their domain. On this account Hobson warned everyone not to wander far, as a rough sea would be enough to bring about the dreaded catastrophe.
Soundings were, however, taken, in several places with a view to ascertaining where the ice was thickest, and it was found that, near Cape Bathurst, not only
