Under the Sea to the North Pole (16 page)

The sun was shining in the sky; at less than half a mile from the tents the sea of an almost black blue was rolling on huge waves. Everything was explained; the explorers had heard during the night the uproar of the ice breaking up.

Hubert looked at the barometer and then proceeded to take an observation and find their latitude and longitude.

They were adrift forty minutes westward, on a floe less than a mile in diameter.

They fell on their knees in prayer to God; they were in His hand, at the mercy of events. Where were they to come ashore?

CHAPTER X

FOILED.

A
MONG the men left at Courbet Island with Captain Lacrosse treason had broken out. For some time it had been foreseen or rather suspected, and when he left the ship, Hubert D’Ermont had not failed to advise the captain of the
Polar Star
to keep a careful watch.

“I do not know why,” he had said, “but I feel a stronger aversion than ever to the chemist Schnecker. I cannot understand what motives the man may have for his hatred, but I feel sure they still exist. Without going so far as to accuse him, yet after my cruise in the balloon I still entertain an inexplicable antipathy to him.”

It was not necessary to put the captain on his guard against the evil intentions of the German. A providential chance had shown his suspicions to be well founded, and he made up his mind to bring the matter to a crisis.

The night before Isabelle and Hubert went away, the chemist had offered to accompany them in their search for De Keralio and his two companions. Lacrosse had refused, and given a very plausible reason for doing so.

“Monsieur Schnecker,” he said, “your presence on board is indispensable. You alone are capable of replacing Lieutenant D’Ermont among us, and your engagement as chemist makes it my duty to require you to remain here.”

This was the courteous way in which the captain politely veiled his orders.

Two days before, in fact, Bernard Lacrosse when on
a,
tour of inspection, had seen the laboratory door half open. Moved by a simple feeling of curiosity, he had entered. Among the apparatus with which it was fitted, he had found a sheet of parchment folded in four, and had casually opened it without any feeling of indiscretion.

This parchment was no less than the diploma of Master of Science granted by a German University to Hermann Schnecker, native of Konigsberg, whose signature to it “left no doubt as to his identity.

This discovery had made a most unpleasant impression on Captain Lacrosse.

The man who had been recommended to De Keralio by notabilities in France, who was enrolled among the others of the expedition as an Alsacian, had usurped the title. He was a German, and, what was worse, a Prussian. Lacrosse resolved to clear up the mystery.

The opportunity soon came.

The
Polar Star
had begun the preparations for the winter. In the early days of August the captain had instituted the ordinary winter routine. The small number of men under his command had made him postpone for a time the erection of the house of planks brought from Cape Washington. The men were to be housed in the ship, and this had the additional advantage of economizing in heating and lighting, besides allowing of the turns of duty being less onerous.

It was decided that there should be reliefs every two hours during the depth of the cold weather.

One night the Canadian sailor, Gaudoux, when on guard, was terrified by a strange apparition.

The sky was peculiarly limpid and the darkness could not last more than two hours. But as soon as the sun liad disappeared below the horizon, the moon, already high, shed its rays through an icy mist which stood about sixty yards above the level of the ground. This mist was of itself invisible, although each of the molecules of icy air of which it was composed, was converted into a miniature lens of great magnifying power.

Gaudoux, who was standing in the stern, was casting about him a look which he would have preferred to have ended in a restorative sleep. A look-out was not of much importance, for besides there being nothing unusual to fear, the
Polar Star
was sheltered by the cliffs of Long Creek, and in no danger from the ice outside, which was still fragmentary and not very thick. But the captain had continued these night watches with the intention of habituating the crew to the trying experiences of the winter that was coming.

What, then, was the sailor’s surprise to see before him the figure of a giant of alarming proportions.

Fear seized on Gaudoux, and paralyzed him for a moment.

The being he saw was manifestly supernatural, for it was at least twenty feet high. The moon brought it out clearly on the background of mist which enveloped it in fleecy transparency.

The sailor gave a shout of alarm, to which Lieutenant Hardy hastened to respond.

A single glance showed him that the fantastic apparition was only the effect of refraction through the fog.

But at the same time, and for quite other motives, the lieutenant was uneasy.

Who was the man who was moving about at this hour?

He seized his speaking-trumpet, and hailed the mysterious phantom. Instead of replying, the phantom seemed to endeavour to get out of sight as soon as possible, and rapidly vanished in the veil of vapour.

Puzzled at this, the lieutenant armed himself with a revolver and a sword, and, followed by two sailors, he slipped noiselessly down the rope ladder which put the ship in communication with the ice-field.

And the three immediately gave chase to the mysterious

fugitive, who, leaving the pursuers to a profitless search, hid among the hummocks, and, creeping on hands and knees regained the steamer and made his way on board over the bow, where he noiselessly opened one of the portholes, and, hurriedly passing along, gained the officers’ quarters.

Meanwhile, Hardy and his companions were vainly tryin” to find him. The report of what had happened had spread among the men, and everyone was on deck t impatiently awaiting the lieutenant’s return. Captain Lacrosse did not attach much importance to the matter. He had said with a laugh,—

“Bah! There are Le Sieur and Schnecker and a man still away making observations to the north of the creek. It is one or the other of them we have seen, and the distance beini^ probably great, our hail has not been heard.”

What appeared to confirm this opinion was the renewal of the phenomenon on the return of Hardy and the two sailors. This time there was not one giant, but three.

Lacrosse hailed them through the speaking trumpet.

“Is that you, Hardy?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the lieutenant’s voice, clearly and distinctly.

When they arrived on board, without having found anything, it had to be admitted that if the spectre had vanished, it must at least have heard the call, for at a distance which was estimated to be greater, the lieutenant and the men had heard Captain Lacrosse distinctly.

Lacrosse was uneasy about it, but allowed no sign of his uneasiness to appear. At the same time, suspecting that the affair might be a practical joke, and hoping to find out who had been guilty of it, he quadrupled the look-outs on deck, notwithstanding the lowering of the temperature, which had now reached twenty-eight below zero. And then he retired to his cabin to take a little rest.

He had not been there more than a quarter of an hour before his attention was attracted by a peculiar noise.

It was a sort of whistling, or rather a continuous rustling, very gentle, like the sound of gas or vapour escaping.

Lacrosse, who was stretched full length on his bed, jumped up and listened.

The noise did not come-from outside. It seemed to come from all parts of the ship, from the woodwork, from the bulkheads, from the deck, from the sides even. Justly alarmed this time, the captain left his cabin . and ran to the engine-room, where the gasometer had been placed with its expansion chamber. Perhaps one of the stokers had been using a boiler for laundry purposes?

He was soon reassured with regard to this. There was no steam in the boilers, and the fires which were lighted for a couple of hours each day for keeping the frost out of the pipes were dead out. The ship was being warmed in the ordinary way by means of coal, the chemist having agreed with the officers that it would be prudent to reserve the hydrogen until the winter set in with full severity.

Whence, then, came this strange, disquieting noise? Without betraying his apprehensions, which were strengthened by the preceding incidents of the evening, the captain called Hardy, and said to him, laconically,—

“Listen!”

The lieutenant listened, and noticed the strange rustling.

“Where does that noise come from?” he asked.

The two officers went back along the way they had come. A circumstance, insignificant in itself, put them on the track of the truth.

Lieutenant Hardy stumbled, having caught his foot in the carpet which covered the floor. He took a lamp to see what had caused him to stumble.

It was at once noticed that the carpet had been turned back. Beneath it was a small hatch giving access to the hold. This hatch, although in its place, was not shut quite down.

It was evident that someone had opened it. Perhaps someone had gone down into the hold, and was there now? A suspicion crossed the captain’s mind.

“Hardy,” said he, “will you call a couple of men? We will send them down.”

Did the lieutenant suspect his chiefs intentions? Anyhow, he went at once and got two men, ordering them to go down through the hatchway.

The men went silently down the narrow opening, and without any noise proceeded to clamber along in the dark among the packages of all kinds, on their way to the centre of the ship under the main hatchway.

The noise which had awakened the captain’s suspicions, grew louder.

It was a continuous whistling, as to the nature of which there could be no mistake.

“That is gas escaping,” said Gaudoux in his companion’s ear.

His companion seized his arm, and in a whisper, asked,—

“Did you hear that?”

Did he hear it? Never had he heard anything more clearly.

“Yes!” said he, “someone is moving the metal tubes.”

Again the noise was heard. Someone or something was further forward among the steel tubes. There could be no doubt about it.

Gaudoux put his hand in his pocket for some matches. His companion instantly stopped him.

“Do you want to blow us up?” he whispered.

Gaudoux understood. A tightness of the throat and an increasing cold also warned him. The hold, notwithstanding its openings, was rapidly becoming saturated with the deleterious gas.

Without another word the two men put their handkerchiefs over their mouths, and feeling their way over the bales and packages, went further on. Their eyes, accustomed to the darkness, perceived a figure which was endeavouring to hide away from them. This time they were sure in their own minds of having to do with a man and not a spirit, and they hurried after the mysterious and dangerous investigator.

While Gaudoux, comprehending the danger of the position, made for the tube from which the gas was escaping and shut if off by means of the screw, and so stopped the noise, his companion went resolutely after the mysterious visitor.