Richard Jefferies - Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 6

Down shot the balloonists and up bounded the great liberated bag of gas; the basket and dangling ropes swung wildly from side to side. The aeronauts touched the water feet foremost at the same instant, and in half a minute they rose, not ten feet apart.

“Now for it,” sputtered Johnston, shaking his bushy head like a swimming dog. “Look, the shore is not very far.” Thorndyke was saving his wind, and said nothing, but accommodated his stroke to that of his companion, and thus they breasted the gently-rolling billows until finally, completely exhausted, they climbed up the shelving rocks and lay down in the warm sunshine.

“Not a very encouraging outlook,” said Johnston, rising when his clothing was dry and climbing a slight elevation. “There is nothing in sight except a waste of stone. Let's go up to that point and look around.”

The ascent was exceedingly trying, for the incline was steep and it was at times difficult to get a firm footing. But they were repaid for the exertion, for they had reached the highest point of the island and could see all over it. As far as their vision reached there was nothing beyond the little island except the glistening waves that reached out till they met the sky in all directions. High up in the clouds they saw the balloon, now steadily drifting with the wind toward the south.

“We might as well be dead and done with it,” grumbled Thorndyke. “Ships are not apt to approach this isolated spot, and even if they did, how could we give a signal of distress?”

Johnston stroked his dark beard thoughtfully, then he pointed toward the shore.

“There are some driftwood and seaweed,” he said; “with my sun-glass I can soon have a bonfire.” He took a piece of punk from a waterproof box that he carried in his pocket and focussed the sun's rays on it. “Run down and bring me an armful of dry seaweed and wood,” he added, intent on his work.

Thorndyke clambered down to the shore, and in a few minutes returned with an armful of fuel. Johnston was blowing his punk into a flame, and in a moment had a blazing fire.

“Good,” approved the Englishman, rubbing his hands together over the flames. “We'll keep it burning and it may do some good.” Then a smile of satisfaction came over his face as he began to take some clams from his pockets. “Plenty of these fellows down there, and they are as fat and juicy as can be. Hurry up and let's bake them. I'm as hungry as a bear. There is a fine spring of fresh water below, too, so we won't die of thirst.”

They baked the clams and ate them heartily, and then went down to the spring near the shore. The water was deliciously cool and invigorating. The sun sank into the quiet ocean and night crept on. The stars came out slowly, and the moon rose full and red from the waves, adding its beams to the flickering light of the fire on the hill-top.

“Suppose we take a walk all round on the beach,” proposed the Englishman; “there is no telling what we may find; we may run on something that has drifted ashore from some wrecked ship.”

Johnston consented. They had encompassed the entire island, which was oval in shape, and were about to ascend to the rock to put fresh fuel on the fire before lying down to sleep for the night, when Thorndyke noticed a road that had evidently been worn in the rock by human footsteps.

“Made by feet,” he said, bending down and looking closely at the rock and raking up a handful of white sand, “but whether the feet of savage or civilized mortal I can't make out.”

Johnston was a few yards ahead of him and stooped to pick up something glittering in the moonlight. It was a tap from the heel of a shoe and was of solid silver.

“Civilized,” he said, holding it out to his companion; “and of the very highest order of civilization. Whoever heard of people rich enough to wear silver heel-taps.”

“Are you sure it is silver?” asked the Englishman, examining it closely.

“Pure and unalloyed; see how the stone has cut into it, and feel its weight.”

“You are right, I believe,” returned Thorndyke, as Johnston put the strange trophy into his pocket-book, and the two adventurers paused a moment and looked mutely into each other's eyes.

“We haven't the faintest idea of where we are,” said Johnston, his tone showing that he was becoming more despondent. “We don't know how long we were unconscious in the balloon, nor where we were taken in the storm. We may now be in the very centre of the North Polar sea—this knob may be the very pivot on which this end of the earth revolves.”

The Englishman laughed. “No danger; the sun is too natural. From the poles it would look different.”

“I don't mean the old sun that you read so much about, and that they make so much racket over at home, but another of which we are the original discoverer—a sun that isn't in old Sol's beat at all, but one that revolves round the earth from north to south and dips in once a day at the north and the south poles. See?”

The Englishman laughed heartily and slapped his friend on the shoulder.

“I think we are somewhere in the Atlantic; but your finding that heel-tap does puzzle me.”

“We are going to have an adventure, beside which all others of our lives will pale into insignificance. I feel it in my bones. See how evenly this road has been worn and it is leading toward the centre of the island.”

In a few minutes the two adventurers came to a point in the road where tall cliffs on either side stood up perpendicularly. It was dark and cold, and but a faint light from the moon shone down to them.

“I don't like this,” said Johnston, who was behind the Englishman; “we may be walking into the ambush of an enemy.”

“Pshaw!” and Thorndyke plunged on into the gloomy passage. Presently the walls began to widen like a letter “Y” and in a great open space they saw a placid lake on the bosom of which the moon was shining. On all sides the towering walls rose for hundreds of feet. Speechless with wonder and with quickly-beating hearts they stumbled forward over the uneven road till they reached the shore of the lake. The water was so clear and still that the moon and stars were reflected in it as if in a great mirror.

“Look at that!” exclaimed Thorndyke, pointing down into the depths, “what can that be?”

Johnston followed Thorndyke's finger with his eyes. At first he thought that it was a comet moving across the sky and reflected in the water; but, on glancing above, he saw his mistake. It looked, at first, like a great ball of fire rolling along the bottom of the lake with a stream of flame in its wake.

The two men watched it for several minutes; all the time it seemed to be growing larger and brighter till, after a while, they saw that the light came from something shaped like a ship, sharp at both ends, and covered with oval glass. As it slowly rose to the surface they saw that it contained five or six men, sitting in easy chairs and reclining on luxurious divans. One of them sat at a sort of pilot-wheel and was directing the course of the strange craft, which was moving as gracefully as a great fish.

Then the young men saw the man at the pilot-wheel raise his hand, and from the water came the musical notes of a great bell. The vessel stopped, and one of the men sprang up and raised an instrument that looked like a telescope to his eyes. With this he seemed to be closely searching the lake shores, for he did not move for several minutes. Then he lowered the instrument, and when the bell had rung again, the vessel rose slowly and perpendicularly to the surface and glided to the shore within twenty yards of where the adventurers stood.

“Could they have seen us?” whispered Thorndyke, drawing Johnston nearer the side of the cliff.