Part 12 (1/2)
The Doctor sighed. ”We can't help it, I suppose--but it's a cruel blow.”
”There's many a break in a long airplane voyage anywhere,” he consoled himself, ”and I think the chances for accidents in the Arctic are about trebled. I don't wish our rivals any fatal catastrophe, but a little tough luck--say a wing demolished; or an engine burned out--might not be so much to my displeasure.”
The days that followed were spent in various ways. Hunting seals and polar bears was something of an out-the-way pleasure for seafaring men.
Then there were checkers and cards, besides the daily guess as to their position at noon.
Strangely enough, for once in the history of Arctic currents, they found themselves being carried where they wanted to go, in a direct line for Point On-na-tak, and during the entire four days and a half there was hardly a point's deviation from the course. On the evening of the fourth day, Dave thought he sighted land, and the midnight watch reported definitely that there was land to the port bow; two points, one more easily discerned than the other. This news brought the whole crew on deck. And for two hours there was wild speculation as to the nature of the country ahead of them; the possibility of inhabitants and their treatment of strangers. Azazruk, the Eskimo, thought that he had heard from an old man of his tribe that the point was inhabited by a people who spoke a different language from that spoken by the Chukches of East Cape and Whaling, on the Russian side of Behring Strait. But of this he could not be sure. If the old engineer knew anything of these sh.o.r.es other than the facts he had already stated concerning wood and coal, he did not venture to say. And no one asked.
So they drifted on until the bleak, snow-capped peaks showed plainly.
Morning revealed a bay lying between the two points. Toward the entrance to this bay they were drifting. One obstacle remained between them and land. A half mile of the floe in which they were drifting lay between them and the black stretch of open water which extended to the edge of the solid sh.o.r.e ice, upon which the submarine might be dragged and over which the shaft might be carried to land. But how was that stretch of tumbled icefloe to be crossed? This, indeed, was a problem.
It was finally decided that Dave and the old engineer should spend the forenoon exploring the ice to landward for a possible narrow channel that would open a way to the water beyond. For this journey they took only field-gla.s.ses, alpine staffs and a lunch in a sealskin sack. Had they known better the nature of the land they were about to visit, they might have gone more fully equipped.
”H'I don't mind tell' y', lad, that we was 'eaded for this point way back some'ers in the late nineties,” said the engineer, ”but there come a Nor'wester, an' the cap'in, 'e lost 'is 'ead and turned to run.
We'd froze in for the winter, but we'd a seen things if we 'ad. We'd a seen 'um.”
They were struggling over some pressure ridges and neither had breath to spare for further talk just then. But presently, as they paused on a high ridge of ice for a survey of their surroundings, Jarvis said:
”H'I said back there they might be coal in the banks. There is, an' other minerals there are 'ere, too. H'it's a rich land, an' now we're 'ere we'd make our fortunes if that daffy doctor wasn't 'eaded straight fer the Pole, an' n.o.body 'ere to stop 'im.”
”What do you make of it?” Dave, who had been studying the sh.o.r.e with the gla.s.s, handed it to Jarvis: ”Do you see something like a village?”
”Sure I do!” exclaimed the other excitedly. ”Sure, there's a village, a 'ole 'eap of bloomin' 'eathen live up 'ere, h'only they hain't dull and stupid like them down below.”
”It's a strange-looking village.”
”Sure, it is. Made all of reindeer skins and walrus pelts. Sure it's different. Them natives up 'ere 'ave got reindeer, 'erds and 'erds of 'em.”
”I suppose they've got walrus ivory, too,” said Dave, warming to the subject.
”Ho, yes, walrus h'ivory a-plenty, them 'eathen 'ave got. But walrus h'ivory hain't so much. Too 'eavy to make a good cargo, an' not 'alf so good as h'elephant h'ivory. But there's minerals, 'eaps of minerals, an'
we'd all be rich men an' it wasn't for the bloomin' doctor.”
No channel to the sh.o.r.e having appeared, they were now making their way along the edge of the open water. Suddenly the old engineer started:
”Did you see 'im?” he whispered.
”What? Where?” Dave stared at the old man, thinking he had suddenly lost his head.
”H'it was a man. 'E popped 'is 'ead out, then beat it. One o' them bloomin' 'eathens.”
”Probably we'd better turn back.”
”Huh!” sniffed the old man. ”'Oo cares for the bloomin' 'eathen? 'Armless they is, 'armless as babies.”
They continued their travel, but the old man seemed distinctly uneasy. He saw heads here and there. And soon, Dave, who did not have the trained eye of the seaman, saw one also. At once he decided that they must turn back to the submarine.
Hardly had they taken this course, when heads seemed to be peering out at them from every ice-pile. It was when they were crossing a broad, flat pan that matters came to a crisis. Suddenly brown, fur-clad figures emerged from the piles at the edge of the pan and approached them. Their soft, rawhide boots made no sound on the ice. Their lips were ominously silent. There was a sinister gleam to the spears which they bore.