Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 113: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEYOND THE GREAT SOUTH WALL.* BY FRANK SAVILE. Being some surprising details of the voyage of the steam yacht Raccoon on a trip undertaken by her owner with a full consciousness of its foolhardy nature, but without the faintest conception of the extraordinary happenings that were to become part and parcel of it. SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED. CAPTAIN DORINECOURTE and his friend known as Gerry are disconsolate over the mandate of the mother of the girls they. love, Gwen and Violet Delahay respectively, which puts them aside as ineligible beside the Earl of Denvarre and his brother, the Hon. Stephen Garlicke, booked among the passengers on the steamship Madagascar for a winter’s cruise around the world, and for which cruise Mrs. Delahay forthwith books herself and her daughters.. While Dorinecourte is bemoaning the poverty which condemns him to his fate, he reads of the death of his uncle, Lord Heatherslie, which gives him the title and estates. The uncle was a noted collector of coins and met his death while investigating an inscription on one of them pointing to the colonization of an unknown region bya certain people called Mayans, a purpose which he leaves as a legacy to his heir. Dorinecourte is inclined to pooh pooh the idea, but finally is induced to seek out Professor Lessaution, a Frenchman with whom his uncle had been associated in his researches. Ascertaining that the explorations must be made in the neighborhood of the South Pole and knowing that the Madagascar is scheduled to call at Port Lewis in the Falkland Isles, the new Lord Heatherslie equips the Raccoon for the voyage and embarks with Gerry, the professor, and a picked crew, for the south. Here their further advance is blocked by a gigantic wall of cliffs, in which no entrance can be found, and no way discovered of scaling the giant heights. After spending three weeks in vain search, they steam north to the Falkland Isles. During a frightful gale they see a burning ship, which proves to be the Madagascar, and it is their good fortune to rescue Lady Delabay, her daughters, Denvarre, and his brother. The storm grows fiercer and on account of accidents to rudder and shaft, they rig a sail and fly before the wind straight to the south, where they anchor in nearly the same locality as before. That night there is a terrible volcanic eruption ; islands disappear, new ones are created. Sud- denly a towering tidal wave sweeps down upon the Raccoon. The yacht rises with it, and is swept over the Great South Wall, and into a peaceful lake where they find themselves absolutely shut in. Dorinecourte heads a party of four to seek a means of escape ; they find evidences of prehabita- tion, and, after an adventure with a terrifying monster, return to find that the lake has disappeared, leaving the Raccoon high on the rocks. They renew their quest the next morning and are rewarded by finding an inlet with an ideal beach for the launching of the cutter. They explore this, and discover to their great dismay, that it has no outlet to the sea. CHAPTER XIV. IN THE NINTH CIRCLE. A S we arrived, our noses were greet- ed with a most stupendous stench. It required but a moment for us to realize that the black objects that lay - above the tide mark were the half dis- membered bodies of sea lions, the 1n-- testines protruding black and decayed upon the smeared and oily sand. * This story began in the September issue of THE ARGOSY. Round about them were tramplings and churnings of the mud, and spread- ing away across the landward rubble to the entrance of the ravine were great sloppy paddings—the slow trudge of some ponderous and long nailed quad- ruped. It was almost with gratified expec- tation that I recognized the trail of the Horror of the cafion. Here doubtless was his feeding ground, his private The three back numbers will be matled to any address on receipt of 30 cents. ®Copyright, 189, by Frank Savile. ECORRIC OO© SS) eo inn