I would tell you that the shore was now hidden from us for a spell, and that we seemed to be in a great pit of ice—as deep a pit as Sindbad the Sailor lay in when the great bird took a fancy to his diamonds. All about us were needles of black rock, wild ravines, and a solitude beyond any imagination dreadful. We had feared crevasses in the glacier; but the few we discovered were of no great depth, and it being unnecessary to cross them, we followed the banks of a river of ice, and presently gained the higher ground on the far side. Here a disquieting thing happened, for we heard a rifle-shot very clearly, and then a second, echoing over the hills as though a hidden enemy enveloped us. For quite a long while we stood and listened, uncertain whether the shots had come from the outer basin or the distant lake. But we could make nothing of them, and drawing a little closer together and watching every spur of the rock as though a man were hidden by it, we gained a height and saw the ship again. And then in a flash we discovered a strange truth.
A long-boat was being rowed round the Celsis, and fully twenty men were aboard it. I could see, even in the uncertain light, that our own gangway ladder had been drawn up, and that the whole of the crew stood to attention on the deck. Captain York himself appeared to be parleying with the strangers from a station near the aft-deck house. But why the rifles had been fired or what was the meaning of that attack I had not a notion, nor Roddy either, for that matter.
"Does he think to play the pirate himself and loot us in the open day?" said I. "Why, Roddy, he could hang for that, if we get back to Europe."
"If we get back, old chap——"
I looked at him sharply. His imperturbable face had not lost its imperturbability, but there was something in his eyes I had never seen before.
"Do you think it's as bad as that, Roddy?"
"As what, my boy?"
"As your thoughts, Roddy."
Well, he dwelt upon it a moment, and then he spoke.
"Look here," he said, with unwonted emphasis, "if those Yanks believe there is gold in Black's house, do you think they mean us to get back to Europe?"
"But, Roddy, we are not old women——"
He laughed.
"You always say that, Scribe. I'm just putting the thing to you. Do they mean us to get back? If the skipper hadn't moved the ship to-day, would there have been any ship to move to-morrow? You know you don't believe it."
"That's to say that they would have mined the rock above us?"
"Of course it is. I guessed that long before Mitchell came aboard. It was the rock I was looking at last night when I took my glasses——"
"Oh," I cried, "what a devilish thing——"
"You may well say that, though I don't suppose Jo Mitchell cares much for a pious opinion. He'd have blasted the rock above us, and the ship would have gone down like a stone. Well, we're holding four aces on that, and he's got to see us. That's what he's been trying to do to-night."
"And the skipper fired a shot or two to keep up his spirits. I wish we were aboard, Roddy."
"What's the good of wishing—we're not. Surely York's capable of dealing with that lot. They're heading off already, don't you see?"
"And running for the open. Then they'll come slap on Billy and the launch."
It was too true. The long-boat was now being rowed from the ship straight for the headlands, and would certainly discover what we had done. It was ten to one we should have the gang on our heels before another hour had passed.
"Will Billy come ashore, do you think?" I asked next. Roddy was sure he would not.
"He's no fool, though he looks one. You get the laugh of the world when you've a mug like Billy's. I'll bet he finds a way out; you see if he doesn't. Hallo, though, I don't like that!"
He caught my arm in his excitement, and we stood together to listen to a sudden roar of a great gun—not the echo of a rifle shot this time, but of cannon—to which the very hills reverberated. Such a surprising thing struck us dumb. We just looked at each other and waited.
"It must have been the echoes, Roddy. Do you remember last night?"
"But, my boy, that was a shot from the headland, from the place we have just left. Good God, and we thought ourselves alone there!"
"Anyway," said I, with more composure, "it was not at old Billy they fired; they'd have done it long ago if he had been their target. There must be others ashore, Roddy; there must be——"
Well, I did not dare to finish with it. A freshet of thought had come to me, and I might share it with no other. Just as I had heard the voice of the dead pirate when we sailed after the rogues of Dolphin's Cove, so in my heart did I believe that I might hear it again amid this desolation. Call it folly, hallucination—what you will, the fact stood stubborn and unconquerable. Roddy, on his part, knew that I was keeping something back, and pressed me to the issue.
"There wasn't a third expedition, Mark. What do you mean by others?"
"Do ships' guns go off by themselves? That was a ship's gun they fired; I knew the sound too well."
"Then it was a ship's gun ashore. I'll swear they fired it from the headland."
"But not at Billy; I'll answer for that."
"Should we go back, do you think?"
"A lot of good we'd do. I say, push on while the luck is with us. That boat may be our salvation if there are others in the haven. I'll trust to York for the ship. He's worth half a dozen Jo Mitchells any day, and he knows just what Billy Eightbells is doing."
I hardly waited for his answer, so reasonable did the thing seem; and soon the pair of us were threading the glacier's path again, and the ship and the outer basin were lost to our view. Half an hour of stiff climbing brought us to a ravine through which we could espy the shore of the great lake, and down this we ran in our excitement. We had won our way whatever the danger, and in an hour we should know the truth.
I can hardly tell you of the medley of strange sensations which accompanied me to the lake-side, or the vivid memories which troubled me. Though it was past seven o'clock of the evening, a full red sun still shone in the western sky and flooded the lake with a sheen of glorious radiance. Wide over this world of desolate waters the crimson rays were winged until they struck upon the infinite whiteness of the distant snow fields and fired the mountain peaks as with living flame. Such grandeur, such a sense of vast spaces, such glory of Nature in her loneliness, few men live to see.
Upon this sense of the majesty of the place there came my memories of the day when I had visited it with the mad Osbart; when he had told me why the pirates had made it their home; had pointed out the deserts to which the prisoners were driven; had shown me the great ice-caves in which the dead had been immured. Black had been King of Ice Haven then, and all had obeyed him. Could he but rise from the dead this night, with what a fury of cruelty and lust would he not drive the intruders out! But Black lay at the bottom of the great ocean, and men were free to come and go as they listed in this, the kingdom he had ruled.
I would tell you that the lake hereabouts is of vast extent; that there are sheer cliffs to the northward, but a kindly shelving shore to the south, and that this leads up by shallow terraces to the Caves of the Dead. Naturally, our first thought, when we threw ourselves down upon the snows of the beach, was of Mitchell and his men, who now occupied Black's old house on the farther shore, and would hardly cross the lake unless they had Osbart's story. So we thought that we lay in some safety for the time being, and might visit the galleries at our pleasure.
"There