Lost in the Air Part 15

Men, women and children, with a wild wail, threw themselves flat on their stomachs, uttering the most melancholy moans that ever came from human lips. Interspersed with the cries were apparent appeals addressed to the visitors.

"What's all this rumpus?" the Doctor demanded of Azazruk, the Eskimo.

"Can you understand their jargon?"

"They say," said the Eskimo, showing his white teeth in a grin, "that they know we are spirits--spirits of dead whales, since we come out of a whale's back, that came up from under the sea. They say not kill them us please. They say this that one. They say, kill plenty whale that one chief native. They say, fire for spirit of dead whale not make that, them. They say that, this one native. But they say not kill them and for sure they make fire, sing song for spirit of dead whale."

The Doctor, who understood this to be one of the superst.i.tions of the natives, and knew that they had taken the submarine for a whale, began to laugh. But at once he checked himself.

Turning a scowling face at the only two standing natives, one of whom had a fresh cut across his cheek, he stormed:

"And why have these fellows no shame? Tell them to fall down at once, or I will step on them."

Azazruk repeated the message, and, surprised and frightened, the two men obeyed.

The Doctor eyed the two curiously for a moment as they lay there squinting up at him, their slant eyes gleaming with suppressed anger.

"Look like they'd been in a fight," he remarked.

And so they did. The darker of the two had the cut on his cheek, before mentioned, his fur parka was torn half off him, displaying some ugly bruises. His companion had lost half a sleeve and his right hand was bleeding.

"They're surely rascals, but you must play the good Samaritan at all times," he said, as he bent over one of them. "Rainey, get my case from the locker, will you?"

Rainey hurried to the submarine, a half mile away, while the natives, still half sprawling on the frozen earth, eyed the hardier fellows, while the Doctor bent over them, as if expecting at any moment to see them drop dead as a result of the magic power of these great spirits from the belly of a whale.

It was Jarvis and Dave who were responsible for the condition of the two natives of the strange bearing. When Jarvis saw their ugly faces and gleaming knives at the door of the ivory prison he was ready for a fight.

His face turned purple, as he muttered between clinched teeth:

"H'it's our chance. 'Ere's where h'I make a killin'. At 'em Dave!"

And, led by his st.u.r.dy engineer, Dave hove at them right royally.

Their knives were short but their arms long, and as for skill, there were no better trained men in the army than Dave and Jarvis.

They made quick work of it. The "bloomin' 'eathen," surprised by the sudden onslaught, were on their backs in a trice. Two of them fared as I have said, and as for the third, he came out with a head so badly pummeled by Jarvis' fist that he was content to crawl into a dark igloo and stay there.

Once outside the prison Jarvis and Dave glanced quickly about them for a hiding-place. Much to their surprise, they did not see a native about the village. Made bold by this, they skirted the rear of the last row of huts, and, dodging down a snowed-in ravine, hid at last in the ice-heaps not twenty rods from the submarine. Not being aware, however, that their friends had succeeded in reaching the sh.o.r.e-ice, they crouched in their icy shelter, their teeth chattering from cold and excitement.

Jarvis had an ugly slash on his right arm. Dave had just succeeded in binding this up when they heard footsteps approaching. Jamming themselves hard into a crevice of ice, Jarvis whispered:

"H'I'll fight t' a finish before h'I go back to that white prison of the bloomin' 'eathen."

Dave made no response.

The steps came nearer, then began to die away.

"Didn't sound like the bloomin' 'eathen," muttered Jarvis. "No near's soft and glidin'. 'Ere 'e comes back. H'I'll 'ave a look." Creeping close to a corner, he peered cautiously out, then with a roar:

"Blime me, it's Rainey!" He sprang from concealment, almost embracing the young gob in his delight.

It was a joyful meeting that took place between the united parties.

When Jarvis saw the Doctor working over the disabled natives he roared first with laughter, then with anger. His last desire was to put them out of the way at once.

"For, sir," he argued, "them hain't no natural, ordinary 'eathen, indeed not, sir. They are the very h'old Nick 'isself, sir."

But Dave suggested putting them in their own ivory prison, and this advice prevailed. After their wounds were dressed they were thrust in and the door barred from without. Wiser men than the "sub" crew have learned that a man is seldom safe in a prison of his own making, but the sailors never gave the prisoners another thought.

"Rainey," said the engineer, as he found himself alone with the young gob, "we'll all be rich men."

"How?" asked his companion.

"There's mineral! Mineral! Gold, me lad, tons of it!" The older man's wrinkled face caught the tints of the sunset and seemed to take on the hue of the metal of which he spoke.

CHAPTER X

TO THE TREASURE CITY

Once all the members of the submarine party were reunited, their one thought was to repair their damaged craft as soon as possible and start again on their way to the Pole. Perhaps the engineer wasted a thought now and again on the supposed great mineral wealth of that peninsula, but if he did, he said nothing.

The men were divided into three groups. The first, the mechanics, undertook the task of removing the shaft; the second guarded the craft against possible attack by the natives, while the third was dispatched up the beach to search for firewood which the mechanics must have.

The work of the guard seemed a joke. Not one of the natives could be induced to approach the dark "spirit-whale" which some of their comrades had seen rise from the water. Even after the steel shaft had been brought ash.o.r.e as tangible evidence that the craft was a thing of metal, they could not be induced to approach it.

The wood hunters found their task a hard one, for, either there never had been much driftwood on these sh.o.r.es, or the natives had used it for summer camp-fires. They searched far down the bay without finding a sufficient quant.i.ty to make "a decent fire over which to roast 'hot-dogs'," as Rainey expressed it.

But as the engineer rounded a point, he suddenly exclaimed;

"There! Ain't h'I been sayin' hit! I 'ates to think 'ow jolly stupit som'ums of ye are."

He was pointing to the banks which overhung the sea. The men, who were looking only for driftwood, did not at first see the cause of his exclamation.

"Coal, my lads!" Jarvis exclaimed, half beside himself. "Coal cropping from the bank!"

It was true. A careful examination showed a four-foot vein of soft coal.

It was not long until reindeer sleds, secured from the natives, were drawing quant.i.ties of the fuel to a point beneath a cliff, where a crude forge had been made out of granite rock.

While this work was going on, the engineer disappeared in the direction of the village. In a half-hour he came tearing back, his face red with rage.

"They're h'out!" he sputtered. "The bally, blithering unnatural 'eathen hev flew the h'ivory coops. T'was to be expected. I 'ates t' think what h'I'd a-done, 'ad h'I 'ad the say of it."

"Oh, well," said the Doctor, who was inclined to take Jarvis' quarrel with the natives rather lightly, "in twenty-four hours we'll be away from these sh.o.r.es never to return."

"Return?" exclaimed Jarvis. "H'I'll return, an' Dave 'ere'll return.

We'll be rich men, we'll be. I 'ates t' think 'ow rich 'im an' me'll be!"