Here
vast fields of ice floated, and the water was not muddy, as it would have
been if it had passed over soil, but of crystal purity and wonderfully
blue in places where shafts of sunlight penetrated to great depths--for
now the sun was high above the horizon ahead, and shining in an almost
clear sky. Presently we began to notice the wind again. It came fitfully,
first from one quarter and then another, rapidly increasing until, at
times, it rose into a tempest. It lifted the water in huge combing waves,
but the car rode them like a lifeboat.
"There is peril for us in this," said Edmund, at last. "We are being
carried by the current into a region where the contending winds may play
havoc. It is the place where the hot air from the sunward side begins to
be chilled and to descend, meeting the colder air from the night side. It
must form a veritable belt of storms, which may be as difficult to pass,
circumstanced as we are, as the crystal mountains themselves."
"Suppose it should turn out that there is nothing but an ocean on this
side of the planet," I suggested.
"That I believe to be impossible," Edmund responded.
Pages:
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121