_A strange manuscript found in a copper cylinder_
          (the second installment)

     from _Harper's weekly_ (1888-jan-14)

            (by James De Mille)


Chapter II.  ADRIFT IN THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN (Cont'd)

  Morning came at last.  The wind was not so
violent, but the snow was so thick that we could
only see for a little distance around us.  The ship
was nowhere visible, nor were there any signs of
her.  The last gun had been fired during the night. 
All that we could see was the outline of a gaunt
iceberg--an ominous spectacle.  Not knowing what
else to do we rowed on as before, keeping in what
seemed our best course, though this was mere
conjecture, and we knew all the time that we might
be going wrong.  There was no compass in the boat,
nor could we tell the sun's position through the
thick snow.  We rowed with the wind, thinking that
it was blowing towards the north, and would carry
us in that direction.  We still hoped to come
within sound of the ship's gun, and kept straining
our ears incessantly to hear the wished-for report. 
But no such sound ever came again, and we heard
nothing except the plash of the waves and the crash
of breaking ice.  Thus all that day we rowed along,
resting at intervals when exhausted, and then
resuming our labors, until at length night came;
and again to the snow and ice and waves was added
the horror of great darkness.  We passed that night
in deep misery.  We had eaten nothing since we left
the ship, but though exhausted by long fasting and
severe labor, the despair of our hearts took away
all desire for food.  We were worn out with hard
work, yet the cold was too great to allow us to
take rest, and we were compelled to row so as to
keep ourselves from perishing.  But fatigue and
drowsiness overcame us, and we often sank into
sleep even while rowing; and then after a brief
slumber we would awake with benumbed limbs to
wrestle again with the oars.  In this way we passed
that night.

  Another morning came, and we found to our great
joy that the snow had ceased.  We looked eagerly
around to see if there were any signs of the ship. 
Nothing could be seen of her.  Far away on one side
rose a peak, which looked like the place where we
had landed.  Judging from the wind, which we still
supposed to be southerly, the peak lay towards the
northeast; in which case we had been carried
steadily, in spite of all our efforts, towards the
south.  About a mile on one side of us the ice
began, and extended far away; while on the other
side, at the distance of some ten miles, there was
another line of ice.  We seemed to have been
carried in a southwesterly direction along a broad 
strait that ran into the vast ice-fields.  This
discovery showed how utterly useless our labors had
been; for in spite of all, even with the wind in
our favor, we had been drawn steadily in an
opposite direction.  It was evident that there was
some current here, stronger than all our strength,
which had brought us to this place.

  We now determined to land on the ice, and try to
cook a portion of our seals.  On approaching it we
noticed that there was a current which tended to
draw us past the ice in what I supposed to be a
southwesterly direction.  This confirmed
my worst fears.  But now the labor of landing and
building a fire on the ice served to interest us
for a time and divert our thoughts.  We brushed
away the snow, and then broke up a box which was in
the boat, and also the stern seats.  This we used
very sparingly, reserving the rest for another
occasion.  Then we cut portions from one of the
seals, and laid them in thin strips on the flames. 
The cooking was but slight, for the meat was merely
singed; but we were ravenous, and the contact of
the fire was enough to give it an attractive
flavor.  With this food we were greatly refreshed;
and as for drink, we had all around us an endless
extent of ice and snow.  Then, taking our precious
fragments of cooked meat, we returned to the boat
and put off.  We could scarcely tell what to do
next, and while debating on this point we fell
asleep.  We slept far into the night, then awoke
benumbed with cold; then took to the oars till we
were weary; then fell asleep again, to be again
awakened by the cold and again to pull at the oars. 
So the night passed, and another day came.

  The snow still held off, but the sky was overcast
with dark, leaden-colored clouds, and looked
threatening.  Ice was all around us as before; and
the open water had diminished now from ten miles to
five miles of width.  The ice on one side was low,
but on the opposite side it arose to the height of
one hundred feet.  We saw here, as we watched the
shore, that the current which had already borne us
thus far was now stronger than ever, and was
carrying us along at a rate which made all efforts
of ours against it utterly useless.  And now a
debate arose between us as to the direction of this
current.  Agnew suddenly declared his belief that
it was running north, while I was firm in the
conviction that it ran south.

  "There's no use rowing any more," said Agnew. 
"If it runs south we can't resist it.  It's too
strong.  But I always like to look on the bright
side, and so I believe it runs north.  In that case
there is no use rowing, for it will carry us along
fast enough."

  Then I proposed that we should go ashore on the
ice.  To this Agnew objected, but afterwards
consented, at my earnest request.  So we tried to
get ashore, but this time found it impossible; for
the ice consisted of a vast sheet of floating
lumps, which looked like the ruin of bergs that had
been broken up in some storm.  After this I had
nothing to say, nor was there anything left for us
but to drift wherever the current might carry us.

  So we drifted for some days, Agnew all the time
maintaining that we were going north, while I was
sure that we were going south.  The sky remained as
cloudy as ever, the wind varied incessantly, and
there was nothing by which we could conjecture the
points of the compass.  We lived on our seal, and
for drink we chewed ice and snow.  One thing was
certain--the climate was no colder.  Agnew laid
great stress on this.

  "You see," said he, "we must be going north.  If
we were going south we should be frozen stiff by
this time."

  "Yes; but if we were going north," said I, "we
ought to find it growing warmer."

  "No," said he, "not with all this ice around us. 
It's the ice that keeps the temperature in this
cold state."

  Argument could do no good, and so we each
remained true to our belief--his leading him to
hope, and mine dragging me down to despair.  At
length we finished the last fragment of the seal
that we had cooked, and, finding
ourselves near some firm ice, we went ashore and
cooked all that was left, using the remainder of
our wood for fuel, and all that we dared to remove
from the boat.  Re-embarking with this, we drifted
on as before.

  Several more days passed.  At last one night I
was roused by Agnew.  He pointed far away to the
distant horizon, where I saw a deep red glow as of
fire.  We were both filled with wonder at the
sight, and were utterly unable to account for it. 
We knew that it could not be caused by the sun or
the moon, for it was midnight, and the cause lay on
the earth and not in the skies.  It was a deep,
lurid glow, extending along the horizon, and seemed
to be caused by some vast conflagration.


Chapter 3.  A WORLD OF FIRE AND DESOLATION

At the sight of that deep-red glow various feelings
arose within us: in me there was new dejection; in
Agnew there was stronger hope.  I could not think
but that it was our ship that was on fire, and was
burning before our eyes.  Agnew thought that it was
some burning forest, and that it showed our
approach to some habitable and inhabited land.  For
hour after hour we watched, and all the time the
current drew us nearer, and the glow grew brighter
and more intense.  At last we were too weak to
watch any longer, and we fell asleep.

  On waking our first thoughts were about the fire,
and we looked eagerly around.  It was day, but the
sky was as gloomy as ever, and the fire was there
before our eyes, bright and terrible.  We could now
see it plainly, and discern the cause also.  The
fire came from two points, at some distance
apart--two peaks rising above the horizon, from
which there burst forth flames and smoke with
incessant explosions.  All was now manifest.  It
was no burning ship, no blazing forest, no land
inhabited by man: those blazing peaks were two
volcanoes in a state of active eruption, and at
that sight I knew the worst.

  "I know where we are now," I said, despairingly.

  "Where?" asked Agnew.

  "That," said I, "is the antarctic continent."

  "The antarctic fiddlestick," said he,
contemptuously.  "It is far more likely to be some
volcanic island in the South Sea.  There's a
tremendous volcano in the Sandwich Islands, and
these are something like it."

  "I believe," said I, "that these are the very
volcanoes that Sir James Ross discovered last
year."

  "Do you happen to know where he found them?"
Agnew asked.

  "I do not," I answered.

  "Well, I do," said he, "and they're thousands of
miles away from this.  They are south latitude 77o,
east longitude 167o; while we, as I guess, are
about south latitude 40o, east longitude 60o."

  "At any rate," said I, "we're drifting straight
towards them."

  "So I see," said Agnew, dryly.  "At any rate, the
current will take us somewhere.  We shall find
ourselves carried past these volcanic islands, or
through them, and then west to the Cape of Good
Hope.  Besides, even here we may find land with
animals and vegetation; who knows?"

  "What! amid all this ice?"I cried.  "Are you
mad?"

  "Mad?" said he; "I should certainly go mad if I
hadn't hope."

  "Hope!" I repeated; "I have long since given up
hope."

  "Oh, well," said he, "enjoy your despair, and
don't try to deprive me of my consolation.  My hope
sustains me, and helps me to cheer you up.  It
would never do, old fellow, for both of us to knock
under."

  I said nothing more, nor did Agnew.  We drifted
on, and all our thoughts were taken up with the two
volcanoes, towards which we were every moment
drawing nearer.  As we approached they grew larger
and larger, towering up to a tremendous height.  I
had seen Vesuvius and Stromboli and AEtna and
Cotopaxi; but these appeared far larger than any
of them, not excepting the last.  They rose, like
the Peak of Teneriffe, abruptly from the sea, with
no intervening hills to dwarf or diminish their
proportions.  They were ten or twelve miles apart,
and the channel of water in which we were drifting
flowed between them.

  Here the ice and snow ended.  We thus came at
last to land; but it was a land that seemed more
terrible than even the bleak expanse of ice and
snow that lay behind, for nothing could be seen
except a vast and drear accumulation of lava blocks
of every imaginable shape, without a trace of
vegetation--uninhabited, uninhabitable, and
unpassable to man.  But just where the ice ended
and the rocks began there was a long, low reef,
which projected for more than a quarter of a mile
into the water, affording the only possible
landing-place within sight.  Here we decided to
land, so as to rest and consider what was best to
be done.

  Here we landed, and walked up to where rugged
lava blocks prevented any further progress.  But at
this spot our attention was suddenly arrested by a
sight of horror.  It was a human figure lying
prostrate, face downward.

  At this sight there came over us a terrible
sensation.  Even Agnew's buoyant soul shrank back,
and we stared at each other with quivering lips. 
It was some time before we could recover ourselves;
then we went to the figure, and stooped down to
examine it.

  The clothes were those of a European and a
sailor; the frame was emaciated and dried up, till
it looked like a skeleton; the face was blackened
and all withered, and the bony hands were clinched
tight.  It was evidently some sailor who had
suffered shipwreck in these frightful solitudes,
and had drifted here to starve to death in this
appalling wilderness.  It was a sight which seemed
ominous of our own fate, and Agnew's boasted hope,
which had so long upheld him, now sank down into a
despair as deep as my own.  What room was there now
for hope, or how could we expect any other fate
than this?

  At length I began to search the pockets of the
deceased.

  "What are you doing?" asked Agnew, in a hoarse
voice.

  "I'm trying to find out who he is," I said. 
"Perhaps there may be papers."

  As I said this I felt something in the
breast-pocket of his jacket, and drew it forth.  It
was a leather pocket-book, moldy and rotten like
the clothing.  On opening it, it fell to pieces. 
There was nothing in it but a piece of paper, also
moldy and rotten.  This I unfolded with great care,
and saw writing there, which, though faded, was
still legible.  It was a letter, and there were
still signs of long and frequent perusals, and
marks, too, which looked as though made by
tears--tears, perhaps of the writer, perhaps of the
reader: who can tell?  I have preserved this letter
ever since, and I now fasten it here upon this
sheet of my manuscript.

      "Bristol April 20, 1820.

       "my darling tom

       "I writ you these few lines in hast i don
     like youar gon a walen an in the south sea dont
     go darlin tom or mebbe ill never se you agin
     for ave bad drems of you darlin tom an im
     afraid so don go my darlin tom but come back an
     take anoth ship for America baby i as wel as
     ever but mises is pa an as got a new tooth an i
     think yo otnt go a walen o darlin tom *** sea
     as the wages was i in New York an better go
     thar an id like to go ther for good for they
     gives good wages in America.  O come back my
     Darlin tom and take me to America an the baby
     an weel all live an love an di together

       "Your loving wife Polley Reed."

  I began to read this, but there came a lump in my
throat, and I had to stop.  Agnew leaned on my
shoulder, and we both read it in silence.  He
rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and drew
a long breath.  Then he walked away for a little
distance, and I put the letter carefully away in my
own pocket-book.  After a little while Agnew came
back.

  "More," said he, "do you remember any of the
burial-service?"

  I understood his meaning at once.

  "Yes," I said, "some of it--a good deal of it, I
think."

  "That's good," said he.  "Let's put the poor
fellow under ground."

  "It would be hard to do that," I said; "we'll
have to bury him in the snow."

  At this Agnew went off for a little distance and
clambered over the rocks.  He was not gone long. 
When he returned he said, "I've found some crumbled
pumice-stone; we can scoop a grave for him there."

  We then raised the body and carried it to the
place which Agnew had found.  So emaciated was the
poor dead sailor that his remains were no heavier
than a small boy.  On reaching the spot, we found
the crumbled pumice-stone.  We placed the body in a
crevice among the lava rocks, and then I said what
I could remember of the burial-service.  After this
we carried in our hands the crumbled pumice-stone
until we had covered the body, and thus gave the
poor fellow a Christian burial.

  We then returned to the shore.

  "More, old fellow," said Agnew, "I feel the
better for this; the service has done me good."

  "And me too," said I.  "It has reminded me of
what I had forgotten.  This world is only a part of
life.  We may lose it and yet live on.  There is
another world; and if we can only keep that in our
minds we sha'n't be so ready to sink into
despair--that is, I sha'n't.  Despair is my
weakness; you are more hopeful."

  "Yes," said Agnew, solemnly; "but my hope thus
far has referred only to the safety of my skin. 
After this I shall try to think of my soul, and
cultivate, not the hope of escape, but the hope
full of immortality.  Yes, More, after all we
shall live, if not in England, then, let us hope,
in heaven."

  There was a long silence after this--that kind of
silence which one may preserve who is at the point
of death.

  "I wonder how he got here?" said Agnew, at last. 
"The letter mentions a whaler.  No doubt the ship
has been driven too far south; it has foundered; he
has escaped in a boat, either alone or with others;
he has been carried along this channel, and has
landed here, afraid to go any farther."

  "But his boat, what has become of that?"

  "His boat!  That must have gone long ago.  The
letter was written in 1820.  At any rate, let's
look around."

  We did so.  After some search we found fragments
of a rotted rope attached to a piece of rock.

  "That," said Agnew, "must have been fastened to
the boat; and as for the boat herself, she has long
ago been swept away from this."

  "What shall we do now?" I said, after a long
silence.

  "There's only one thing," said Agnew.  "We must
go on."

  "Go on?" I asked, in wonder.

  "Certainly," said he, confidently.  "Will you
stay here?  No.  Will you go back?  You can't.  We
must, therefore, go on.  That is our only hope."

  "Hope!" I cried.  "Do you still talk of hope?"

  "Hope?" said Agnew; "of course.  Why not?  There
are no limits to hope, are there?  One can hope
anything anywhere.  It is better to die while
struggling like a man, full of hope and energy than
to perish in inaction and despair.  It is better to
die in the storm and furious waters than to waste
away in this awful place.  So come along.  Let's
drift as before.  Let's see where this channel will
take us.  It will certainly take us somewhere. 
Such a stream as this must have some outlet."

  "This stream," said I, "will take us to death,
and death only.  The current grows swifter every
hour.  I've heard some old yarn of a vast opening
at each of the poles, or one of them, into which
the waters of the ocean pour.  They fall into one,
and some say they go through and come out at the
other."

  Agnew laughed.

  "That," said he, "is a madman's dream.  In the
first place, I don't believe that we are
approaching the south, but the north.  The warmth
of the climate here shows that.  Yes, we are
drawing north.  We shall soon emerge into warm
waters and bright skies.  So come along, and let us
lose no more time."

  I made no further objection.  There was nothing
else to be done, and at the very worst we could not
be in greater danger while drifting on than in
remaining behind.  Soon, therefore, we were again
in the boat, and the current swept us on as before.

  The channel now was about four miles wide.  On
either side arose the lofty volcanoes vomiting
forth flames and smoke with furious explosions;
vast stones were hurled up into the air from the
craters; streams of molten lava rolled down, and at
intervals there fell great showers of ashes.  The
shores on either side were precipitous and rugged
beyond all description, looking like fiery lava
streams which had been arrested by the flood, and
cooled into gloomy, overhanging cliffs.  The lava
rock was of a deep, dull slate-color, which
at a distance looked black; and the blackness which
thus succeeded to the whiteness of the snow behind
us seemed like the funeral pall of nature.  Through
scenes like these we drifted on, and the volcanoes
on either side of the channel towered on high with
their fiery floods of lava, their incessant
explosions, their fierce outbursts of flames, and
overhead there rolled a dense black canopy of
smoke--altogether forming a terrific approach to
that unknown and awful pathway upon which we were
going.  So we passed this dread portal, and then
there lay before us--what?  Was it a land of life
or a land of death?  Who could say?

  It was evening when we passed through.  Night
came on, and the darkness was illuminated by the
fiery glow of the volcanic flames.  Worn out with
fatigue, we fell asleep.  So the night passed, and
the current bore us on until, at length, the
morning came.  We awoke, and now, for the first
time in many days, we saw the face of the sun.  The
clouds had at last broken, the sky was clear, and
behind us the sun was shining.  That sight told us
all.  It showed us where we were going.

  I pointed to the sun.

  "Look there," said I.  "There is the sun in the
northern sky--behind us.  We have been drifting
steadily towards the south."

  At this Agnew was silent, and sat looking back
for a long time.  There we could still see the glow
of the volcanic fires, though they were now many
miles away; while the sun, but lately risen, was
lying on a course closer to the horizon than we had
ever seen it before.

  "We are going south," said I--"to the South Pole. 
This swift current can have but one ending--there
may be an opening at the South Pole, or a whirlpool
like the Maelstrom."

  Agnew looked around with a smile.

  "All these notions," said he, "are dreams, or
theories, or guesses.  There is no evidence to
prove them.  Why trouble yourself about a guess? 
You and I can guess, and with better reason; for we
have now, it seems, come farther south than any
human being who has ever lived.  Do not imagine
that the surface of the earth is different at the
poles from what it is anywhere else.  If we get to
the South Pole we shall see there what we have
always seen--the open view of land or water, and
the boundary of the horizon.  As for this current,
it seems to me like the Gulf Stream, and it
evidently does an important work in the movement of
the ocean waters.  It pours on through vast fields
of ice on its way to other oceans, where it will
probably become united with new currents.  Theories
about openings at the poles, or whirlpools, must be
given up.  Since the Maelstrom has been found to be
a fiction no one need believe in any other
whirlpool.  For my own part, I now believe that
this current will bear us on, due south, over the
pole, and then still onward, until at last we shall
find ourselves in the South Pacific Ocean.  So
cheer up--don't be downhearted: there's still hope.
We have left the ice and snow behind, and already
the air is warmer.  Cheer up; we may find our luck
turn at any moment."

  To this I had no reply to make.  Agnew's
confidence seemed to me to be assumed, and
certainly did not alleviate my own deep gloom, nor
was the scene around calculated to rouse me in the
slightest degree out of my despair.  The channel
had now lessened to a width of not more than two
miles; the shore on either side were precipitous
cliffs, broken by occasional declivities, but all
of solid rock, so dark as to be almost black, and
evidently of volcanic origin.  At times there arose
rugged eminences, scarred and riven, indescribably
dismal and appalling.  There was not only an utter
absence of life here in these abhorrent regions,
but an actual impossibility of life which was
enough to make the stoutest heart quail.  The rocks
looked like iron.  It seemed a land of iron
penetrated by this ocean stream which had made for
itself a channel, and now bore us onward to a
destination which was beyond all conjecture.

  Through such scenes we drifted all that day. 
Night came, and in the skies overhead there arose a
brilliant display of the aurora australis, while
towards the north the volcanic fires glowed with
intense luster.  That night we slept.  On awakening
we noticed a change in the scene.  The shores,
though still black and forbidding, were no longer
precipitous, but sloped down gradually to the
water; the climate was sensibly milder, and far
away before us there arose a line of giant
mountains, whose summits were covered with ice and
snow that gleamed white and purple in the rays of
the sun.

  Suddenly Agnew gave a cry, and pointed to the
opposite shore.

  "Look!" he cried--"do you see?  They are men!"

  I looked, and there I saw plainly some moving
figures that were, beyond a doubt, human beings.

(End of part two.)
(Proofread by Virginia Conn)