Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/406

14 "We reached the ship in safety, and the captain and I spent long hours in trying to form some plan for getting beyond the great ice-ring.

If it's warm up there, and everything that we've seen says it is, all this cold water that's going north gets warm and goes out some place; and rest you, son, wherever it goes out, there's a hole in the ice.'

"Here we were interrupted by the mate, who said that there were queer things going on overhead, and some of the sailors were ready to mutiny unless the return trip was commenced at once. Captain Burrows went on deck at once, and you may be sure I followed at his heels.

What's wrong here?' demanded the captain, in his roaring tone, stepping into the midst of the crew.

A judgment against this pryin' into God's secrets, sir,' said an English sailor, in an awe-struck voice. 'Look at the signs, sir,' pointing overhead.

"Captain Burrows and I both looked over our heads, and there saw an impressive sight, indeed. A vast colored map of an unknown world hung in the clouds over us—a mirage from the aurora. It looked very near, and was so distinct that we could distinguish polar bears on the ice-crags. One man insisted that the mainmast almost touched one snowy peak, and most of them actually believed that it was an inverted part of some world, slowly coming down to crush us. Captain Burrows looked for several minutes before he spoke. Then he said: 'My men, this is the grandest proof of all that Providence is helping us. This thing that you see is only a picture; it's a mirage, the reflection of a portion of the earth on the sky. Just look, and you will see that it's in the shape of a crescent, and we are almost in the center of it; and, I tell you, it's a picture of the country just in front of us. See this peak? See that low place where we went up? There is the great wall we saw, the open sea beyond it, and, bless me, if it don't look like something green over in the middle of that ocean! See, here is the "Duncan McDonald," as plain as A, B, C, right overhead. Now, there's nothing to be afraid of in that; if it's a warning, it's a good one—and if any one wants to go home to his mother's, and is old enough, he can walk!'

"The captain looked around, but the sailors were as cool as he was—they were reassured by his honest explanation. Then he took me by the arm, and, pointing to the painting in the sky, said: 'Old man Providence again, son, sure as you are born; do you see that lane through the great ring? There's an open, fairly straight passage to the inner ocean, except that it's closed by about three miles of ice on our side; see it there, on the port side?'

"Yes, I could see it, but I asked Captain Burrows how he could account for the open passages beyond and the wall of ice in front; it was cold water going in.

It's strange,' he answered, shading his eye with his hand, and looking long at the clear passage, like a great canal between the beetling cliffs. All at once, he grasped my arm and said in excitement, pointing towards the outer end of the passage: 'Look!'

"As I looked at the mirage again, the great mass of ice in front commenced to slowly turn over, outwardly.

It's an iceberg, sir, only an iceberg!' said the captain, excitedly, 'and she is just holding that passage because the current keeps her up against the hole; now, she will wear out some day, and then—in goes the "Duncan McDonald"!'

But there are others to take its place,' and I pointed to three other bergs, apparently some twenty miles away, plainly shown in the sky; 'they are the reinforcements to hold the passage.'

Looks that way, son, but by the great American buzzard, we'll get in there somehow, if we have to blow that berg up.'

"As we looked, the picture commenced to disappear, not fade, but to go off to one side, just as a picture leaves the screen of a magic lantern. Over the inner ocean there appeared dark clouds; but this part was visible last, and the clouds seemed to break at the last moment, and a white city, set in green fields and forests, was visible for an instant, a great golden dome in the center remaining in view after the rest of the city was invisible.

A rainbow of promise, son,' said the captain.

"I looked around. The others had grown tired of looking, and were gone. Captain Burrows and myself were the only ones that saw the city.

"We got under way for an hour, and then stood by near the berg until eight bells the next morning; but you must remember it was half dark all the time up there then. While Captain Burrows and myself were at breakfast, he cudgeled his brains over ways and means for moving that ice, or