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_ With no intention of ascending again into any accidental holes in
the ice above them, the voyagers on the Dipsey kept on their
uneventful way, until, upon the third day after their discovery
of the lake, the electric bell attached to the heavy lead which
always hung suspended below the vessel, rang violently,
indicating that it had touched the bottom. This sound startled
everybody on board. In all their submarine experiences they had
not yet sunk down low enough to be anywhere near the bottom of
the sea.
Of course orders were given to ascend immediately, and at the
same time a minor search-light was directed upward through the
deck skylight. To the horror of the observers, ice could plainly
be seen stretching above them like an irregular, gray sky.
Here was a condition of things which had not been anticipated.
The bottom below and the ice above were approaching each other.
Of course it might have been some promontory of the rocks under
the sea against which their telltale lead had struck; but there
was an instrument on board for taking soundings by means of a
lead suspended outside and a wire running through a water-proof
hole in the bottom of the vessel, and when the Dipsey had risen a
few fathoms, and was progressing very slowly, this instrument was
used at frequent intervals, and it was found that the electric
lead had not touched a rock projecting upward, and that the
bottom was almost level.
Mr. Gibbs's instrument gave him an approximate idea of the
vessel's depth in the water, and the dial connected with the
sounding apparatus told him hour by hour that the distance from
the bottom, as the vessel kept forward on the same plane, was
becoming less and less. Consequently he determined, so long as
he was able to proceed, to keep the Dipsey as near as possible at
a median distance between the ice and the bottom.
This was an anxious time. So long as they had felt that they had
plenty of sea-room the little party of adventurers had not yet
recognized any danger which they thought sufficient to deter them
from farther progress; but if the ice and the bottom were coming
together, what could they do? It was possible, by means of
explosives they carried, to shatter the ice above them; but
action of this kind had not been contemplated unless they should
find themselves at the pole and still shut in by ice. They did
not wish to get out into the open air at the point where they
found themselves; and, moreover, it would not have been safe to
explode their great bombs in such shallow water. A consultation
was held, and it was agreed that the best thing to do was to
diverge from the course they had steadily maintained, and try to
find a deeper channel leading to the north. Accordingly they
steered eastward.
It was not long before they found that they had judged wisely;
the bottom descended far out of the reach of their electric lead,
and they were enabled to keep a safe distance below the
overhanging ice.
"I feel sure," said Mr. Gibbs, "that we came near running against
some outreaching portion of the main Western Continent, and now
we have got to look out for the foundations of Greenland's icy
mountains." He spoke cheerily, for he wished to encourage his
companions, but there was a very anxious look upon his face when
he was not speaking to any one.
The next day every one was anxious, whether he spoke or was
silent. The bottom was rising again, and the Dipsey was obliged
to sail nearer and nearer to the ice above. Between two dangers,
constricted and trammelled as they were, none of them could help
feeling the terrors of their position, and if it had not been for
the encouraging messages which continually came to them from
Sardis, they might not have been able to keep up brave hearts.
After two days of most cautious progress, during which the water
became steadily shallower and shallower, it was discovered that
the ice above, which they were now obliged to approach much more
closely than they had ever done before, was comparatively thin,
and broken in many places. Great cracks could be seen in it here
and there, and movements could be discerned indicating that it
was a floe, or floating mass of ice. If that were the case, it
was not impossible that they were now nearing the edge of the ice
under which they had so long been sailing, and that beyond them
was the open water. If they could reach that, and find it the
unobstructed sea which was supposed to exist at this end of the
earth's axis, their expedition was a success. At that moment
they were less than one hundred miles from the pole.
Whether the voyagers on the Dipsey were more excited when the
probable condition of their situation became known to them, or
whether Roland Clewe and Margaret Raleigh in the office of the
Works at Sardis were the more greatly moved when they received
that day's report from the arctic regions, it would be hard to
say. If there should be room enough for the little submarine
vessel to safely navigate beneath the ice which there was such
good reason to believe was floating on the edge of the body of
water they had come in search of, and on whose surface they might
freely sail, what then was likely to hinder them from reaching
the pole? The presence of ice in the vicinity of that extreme
northern point was feared by no one concerned in the expedition,
for it was believed that the rotary motion of the earth would
have a tendency to drive it away from the pole by centrifugal
force.
The little thermometer-boat which during the submarine voyage of
the Dipsey had constantly preceded her to give warning of the
sunken base of some great iceberg, was now drawn in close to the
bow; there was so much ice so near that its warnings were
constant, and therefore unneeded.
The electric lead-line was shortened to the length of a few
fathoms, and even then it sometimes suddenly rang out its alarm.
After a time the bottom of the sea became visible through the
stout glass of a protected window near the bow, and a man was
placed there to report what he could see below them.
It had now become so light that in some parts of the vessel the
electric lamps were turned out. Fissures of considerable size
appeared in the ice above, and then, to the great excitement of
every one, the vessel slowly moved under a wide space of open
water; but the ice could be seen ahead, and she did not rise.
The bottom came no nearer, and the Dipsey moved cautiously on.
Nobody thought of eating; they did not talk much, but at every
one of the outlooks there were eager faces.
At last they saw nothing above them but floating fragments of
ice. Still they kept on, until they were plainly moving below
the surface of open water. Then Mr. Gibbs looked at Sammy.
"I think it is time to rise," said he; and Sammy passed the word
that the Dipsey was going up into the upper air.
When the little craft, so long submerged in the quiet depths of
the Arctic Sea, had risen until she rested on the surface of the
water, there was no general desire, as there had been when she
emerged into Lake Shiver, to rush upon the upper deck. Instead
of that, the occupants gathered together and looked at each other
in a hesitating way, as if they were afraid to go out and see
whether they were really in an open sea, or lying in some small
ice-locked body of water.
Mr. Gibbs was very pale.
"My friends," said he, "we are going on deck to find out whether
or not we have reached the open polar sea, but we must not be
excited, and we must not jump to hurried conclusions; we may have
found what we are in search of, and we may not have found it yet.
But we will go up and look out upon the polar world as far as we
can see it, and we shall not decide upon this thing or that until
we have thoroughly studied the whole situation. The engines are
stopped, and every one may go up, but I advise you all to put on
your warmest clothes. We should remember our experience at Lake
Shiver."
"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Sammy Block, "to throw out a
lot of tarpaulins to stand on, so that none of us will get frozen
to the wet deck, as happened before."
When the hatch was opened a man with a black beard pushed himself
forward towards the companionway.
"Keep back here, sir," said Mr. Marcy, clapping his hand upon the
man's shoulder.
"I want to be ready to spread the tarpaulins, sir," said he, with
a wriggling motion, as if he would free himself.
"You want to be the first to see the polar sea, that is my
opinion," said Mr. Marcy; "but you keep back there where you
belong." And with that he gave the eager Rovinski a staggering
push to the rear.
Five minutes afterwards Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe,
sitting close together by the telegraph instrument in the Works
at Sardis, received the following message:
"We have risen to the surface of what we believe to be the open
polar sea. Everybody is on deck but me. It is very cold, and a
wind is blowing. Off to our left there are high mountains,
stretching westward as far as we can see. They are all snow and
ice, but they look blue and green and beautiful. From these
mountains there comes this way a long cape, with a little
mountain at the end of it. Mr. Gibbs says this mountain, which
is about twenty miles away, must be just about between us and the
pole, but it does not cut us off. Far out to the right, as far
as we can see, there is open water shining in the sun, so that we
can sail around the cape. On the right and behind us, southward,
are everlasting plains of snow and ice, which we have just come
from under. They are so white that it dazzles our eyes to look
at them. In some places they are smooth, and in some places they
are tumbled up. On the very edge of the sky, in that direction,
there are more mountains. There are no animals or people
anywhere. It is very cold, even inside the vessel. My fingers
are stiff. Now that we are out on the water, in regular
shipshape, Captain Jim Hubbell has taken command. We are going
to cruise northward as soon as we can get things regulated for
outside sailing.
"SAMUEL BLOCK." _
Read next: CHAPTER XII - CAPTAIN HUBBELL TAKES COMMAND
Read previous: CHAPTER X - "LAKE SHIVER"
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