As the boys dashed down the s...o...b..nk into the rookery, with their revolvers drawn, the professor, with a loud yell, fell backward into a well-filled nest. He arose with yellow yolks streaming from him and covered with down, feathers and eggsh.e.l.l, that made him look like a spectacled penguin himself. Rastus fared no better and was being beaten and pecked unmercifully when the boys rushed down to the rescue.

"Fire your revolvers in the air!" cried Frank. "Don't kill the poor things."

"Fo' goodness sake kill dis big feller dat's a-peckin' mah nose off!"

yelled Rastus, struggling on the ground in the midst of a ma.s.s of broken eggs.

The fusillade that went up from the boys' pistols made the penguins stop their attack and waddle off in affright, while the professor and Rastus, both sorry figures, scrambled to their feet and tried to brush off some of the eggsh.e.l.ls and yellow yolks that covered them from head to foot.

"Come on back to the auto," cried Frank, when he saw they were safe.

"What, aren't you going to kill some of the birds?" demanded the professor.

"No, certainly not," replied Frank. "What for?"

"Why they attacked us and frightened the life out of me," protested the professor.

"An' dem pesky pencilguins mos' bited mah nose off," roared Rastus, rubbing that not over prominent feature.

"Well, you had no business in their rookery, anyhow," rejoined Frank, unfeelingly. "Why did you go?"

"Why, my dear sir," said the professor, regarding him with sorrowful egg-stained countenance; "in the interests of science, of course. We would not have been attacked at all if Rastus had not tried to catch a penguin. What for, I cannot imagine."

"Why, perfusser, you done say dey tas' lak chickin," ruefully cried the black man.

"Did I?" exclaimed the man of science. "Well, bless my soul, so I did.

That was very foolish of me. I ought to have known that Rastus would not be able to resist such an idea."

"Ah dunno 'bout de idah," observed Rastus, as he cranked up the machine, and the boys and the professor climbed on board; "but ah couldn' resis' de chicking."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE FLAMING MOUNTAIN.

A few days after the events described in the last chapter, Captain Hazzard summoned the boys to him and informed them that it was time to start out and establish "depots" for the storing of food and blankets as far as was practicable, in the direction of the pole. This was in order that any parties sent out to explore might not run the chance of being lost in the antarctic snows without having some place to which they could retreat. The "depots" were to be marked as rapidly as they were made with tall bamboo poles, each of which bore a black flag.

The boys pitched in to this occupation with great enthusiasm and, with the aid of the motor-sledge, soon had established three depots, covering a radius of some eighty miles from the camp. This work brought them to the verge of the chain of snow-mountains, beyond whose white crests they believed lay the pole. Somewhere along the coast line of this chain of mountains, too, so the lieutenant calculated, lay the Viking ship, which, in the years that had elapsed since the whalemen had seen her, must have drifted towards their bases on the ever-shifting polar currents. For the Great Barrier, solid as it seems, is not stationary, and many scientists hold that it is subject to violent earthquakes, caused by the subsidence of great areas of icy land into the boiling craters of polar volcanoes.

A careful study of the position, in which the whalemen set down they had spied the ship, and a calculation of the polar drift during the time that had elapsed from their discovery, had enabled Captain Hazzard to come, as he believed, very nearly locating the exact situation of the mysterious vessel.

"Somewhere to the southeast, at the foot of the snow-mountains, I firmly believe that we shall find her," he said.

It was a week after the establishment of the last depot that the boys were ready to make their first flight in polar regions. The Golden Eagle's vacuum tank and crank-case were attached and a supply of non-freezing oils and gasolene drums, carefully covered with warm felt, taken on board.

"Your instructions are," were Captain Hazzard's parting words, "to fly to the southward for a distance of a hundred miles or so, but no further. You will report the nature of the country and bring back your observations made with the instruments."

The Golden Eagle, which had been a.s.sembled earlier in the spring, was wheeled out of her shed and, after a brief "grooming," was ready for her first flight in the antarctic regions.

"It seems queer," observed Frank, "to be flying an aeroplane, that has been through so many tropical adventures, in the frozen regions of the south pole."

"It does, indeed," said the professor, who, with Billy Barnes, had obtained permission to accompany the boys.

Captain Hazzard, himself, would have come but that he and Captain Barrington had determined to make surveys of the ice surrounding the Southern Cross, in order to decide whether the ship had a speedy chance of delivery from her frozen bondage.

The Golden Eagle shot into the icy air at exactly ten minutes past nine on the morning of the 28th of September. It was a perfect day, with the thermometer registering 22 above zero. So accustomed had they become to the bitter cold of the polar winter that even this low temperature seemed oppressive to the boys, and they wore only their ordinary leather aviation garments and warm underclothes. A plentiful supply of warm clothing was, however, taken along in case of need.

Plenty of provisions and a specially contrived stove for melting snow into water were also carried, as well as blankets and sleeping bags.

The shout of farewell from the sojourners at the camp had hardly died out before the aviators found themselves flying at a height of three hundred feet above the frozen wastes. Viewed from that height, the aspect stretched below them was, indeed, a desolate one. As far as the eye could reach was nothing but the great whiteness. Had it not been for the colored snow goggles they wore the boys might have been blinded by the brilliancy of the expanse, as cases of snow blindness are by no means uncommon in the Antarctic.

On and on they flew toward the mighty snow mountains which towered like guardian giants ahead of them. The barograph showed that after some hours of flying they had now attained a height of two thousand feet, which was sufficient to enable them to clear the ridge. Viewed from above, the snow mountains looked like any other mountains. They were scarred by gullies and valleys in the snow, and only the lack of vegetation betrayed them as frozen heaps. Perhaps not mountains in the ordinary sense at all, but simply mighty ma.s.ses of ice thrown up by the action of the polar drift.

"Look, look," quavered Billy Barnes, as they cleared the range and their eyes fell on the expanse beyond.

The boy's exclamation had been called forth by the sight of an immense mountain far to the southward of them.

From its summit was emerging a cloud of black smoke.

"A volcano!" exclaimed Frank, in blank astonishment.

"Such another as Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, also within the antarctic circle, but not either of which is as big as this one. I should imagine," said the professor. "Boys, let us head for it," he exclaimed; "it must be warm in the vicinity of the crater and perhaps we may find some sort of life existent there. Even the fur-bearing pollywog may reside there. Who knows?"

All agreed, without much argument, that it came within the scope of their duties to investigate the volcano, and they soon were winging toward it. As they neared the smoking cone they observed that its sides were formed of some sort of black stone, and with that, mingled with the smoke that erupted from its mouth, came an occasional burst of flame.

"It's in eruption," gasped Billy. "We'd better not get too near to it."

"I apprehend no danger," said the professor. "Both Scott and Shackleton and our own Wilkes examined the craters of Mounts Erebus and Terror, when steam and flames were occasionally spurting from them, without suffering any bad consequences."

Acting on the professor's advice the aeroplane was grounded at a point some distance from the summit of the mountain, on a small flat plateau. The warmth was perceptible, and some few stunted bushes and trees clung to the sides of the flaming mountain. The professor was delighted to find, flitting among the vegetation, a small fly with pink and blue wings, which he promptly christened the Sanburritis Antarcticitis America.n.u.s. He netted it without difficulty and popped it into a camphor bottle and turned, with the boys, to regarding the mountain.

"Let's climb it and examine the crater," exclaimed Frank, suddenly, the instinct of the explorer strong in him.

"Bully," cried Billy; "I'm on."

"And me," exploded Harry.

"I should dearly love to," spoke the professor; "perhaps we can discover some more strange insects at the summit."

The climb was a tedious one, even with the aid of the rope they had brought with them from the Golden Eagle; and with which part of the party hauled the others over seemingly impa.s.sable places. At last, panting, and actually perspiring in the warm air, they stood on the lip of the crater and gazed down.

It was an awe-inspiring sight.

The crater was about half-a-mile across the top, and its rocky sides glowed everywhere with the glare of the subterranean fires. A reek of sulphurous fumes filled the air and made the adventurers feel dizzy.

They, therefore, worked round on the windward side of the crater, and after that felt no ill consequences.

For a long time they stood regarding the depths from which the heavy black smoke rolled up.