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He was standing on a rock at the foot of the hillock above the beach in which Halbrahe Land ended beyond the point, and his right hand was stretched out towards the sea. “What is it?” asked Captain Len Guy. “A boat.” “Is it the Halbrane’s boat coming back?” “No, captain it is not.”
On the 27th, in the morning, in the presence of the authorities of the Archipelago, the Halbrane’s anchor was lifted, the last good wishes and the final adieus were exchanged, and the schooner took the sea. The same evening Capes Dolphin and Pembroke disappeared in the mists of the horizon.
“Thief of a sphinx!” Of course the things which had belonged to the Halbrane’s boat and the Paracuta’s were the only articles that adorned the mighty sides of the lonely mystic form. Never had any ship reached such a latitude of the Antarctic Sea. Hearne and his accomplices, Captain Len Guy and his companions, were the first who had trodden this point of the southern continent.
“Then that will be Bennet Islet or Tsalal Island, provided there are any taverns in those savage islands, and any Atkinses to keep them.” “Tell me, boatswain I always get back to Hunt does he seem so much pleased to have passed the Polar Circle as the Halbrane’s old sailors are?” “Who knows? There’s nothing to be got out of him one way or another.
I was understood, and in an instant the final catastrophe, to which Hearne and his companions were victims, was explained with terrible clearness. The Antarctic Sphinx was simply a colossal magnet. Under the influence of that magnet the iron bands of the Halbrane’s boat had been torn out and projected as though by the action of a catapult.
At the moment when I was about to accost him, the Halbrane’s lieutenant rejoined his captain, and the latter availed himself of the opportunity to avoid me. He made a sign to the officer to follow him, and the two walked away at a rapid pace. “This is serious,” said I to myself. “It looks as though I shall find it difficult to gain my point. But, after all it only means delay.
This was the occult force that had irresistibly attracted everything made of iron on the Paracuta. And the boat itself would have shared the fate of the Halbrane’s boat had a single bit of that metal been employed in its construction. Was it, then, the proximity of the magnetic pole that produced such effects? At first we entertained this idea, but on reflection we rejected it.
We had, however, no time for reflection, and immediately upon our landing, our attention was turned in another direction by the sight of a boat lying wrecked upon the sand. “The Halbrane’s boat!” cried Hurliguerly.
On arriving at the base of the mound, we found there the various articles on which the magnet had exerted its power; arms, utensils, the grapnel of the Paracuta, all adhering to the sides of the monster. There also were the iron relics of the Halbrane’s boat, all her utensils, arms, and fittings, even to the nails and the iron portions of the rudder.
At six o’clock the sun disappeared behind a thick curtain of mist. After midnight the breeze freshened, and the Halbrane’s progress marked a dozen additional miles. On the morrow the good ship was less than the third of a degree, that is to say less than twenty miles, from Tsalal Island. Unfortunately, just after mid-day, the wind fell.
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