Great Stone of Sardis

by Frank Richard Stockton

  CHAPTER XI. THEY BELIEVE IT IS THE POLAR SEA

  With no intention of ascending again into any accidental holes in theice above them, the voyagers on the Dipsey kept on their uneventfulway, until, upon the third day after their discovery of the lake, theelectric bell attached to the heavy lead which always hung suspendedbelow the vessel, rang violently, indicating that it had touched thebottom. This sound startled everybody on board. In all their submarineexperiences they had not yet sunk down low enough to be anywhere nearthe bottom of the sea.

  Of course orders were given to ascend immediately, and at the same timea minor search-light was directed upward through the deck skylight. Tothe horror of the observers, ice could plainly be seen stretching abovethem like an irregular, gray sky.

  Here was a condition of things which had not been anticipated. Thebottom below and the ice above were approaching each other. Of course itmight have been some promontory of the rocks under the sea against whichtheir telltale lead had struck; but there was an instrument on board fortaking soundings by means of a lead suspended outside and a wire runningthrough a water-proof hole in the bottom of the vessel, and when theDipsey had risen a few fathoms, and was progressing very slowly, thisinstrument was used at frequent intervals, and it was found that theelectric lead had not touched a rock projecting upward, and that thebottom was almost level.

  Mr. Gibbs's instrument gave him an approximate idea of the vessel'sdepth in the water, and the dial connected with the sounding apparatustold him hour by hour that the distance from the bottom, as the vesselkept forward on the same plane, was becoming less and less. Consequentlyhe determined, so long as he was able to proceed, to keep the Dipsey asnear 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 plentyof sea-room the little party of adventurers had not yet recognizedany danger which they thought sufficient to deter them from fartherprogress; but if the ice and the bottom were coming together, whatcould they do? It was possible, by means of explosives they carried,to shatter the ice above them; but action of this kind had not beencontemplated unless they should find themselves at the pole and stillshut in by ice. They did not wish to get out into the open air at thepoint where they found themselves; and, moreover, it would not have beensafe to explode their great bombs in such shallow water. A consultationwas held, and it was agreed that the best thing to do was to divergefrom the course they had steadily maintained, and try to find a deeperchannel leading to the north. Accordingly they steered eastward.

  It was not long before they found that they had judged wisely; thebottom descended far out of the reach of their electric lead, and theywere enabled to keep a safe distance below the overhanging ice.

  "I feel sure," said Mr. Gibbs, "that we came near running against someoutreaching portion of the main Western Continent, and now we have gotto look out for the foundations of Greenland's icy mountains." He spokecheerily, for he wished to encourage his companions, but there was avery 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. Thebottom was rising again, and the Dipsey was obliged to sail nearer andnearer to the ice above. Between two dangers, constricted and trammelledas they were, none of them could help feeling the terrors of theirposition, and if it had not been for the encouraging messages whichcontinually came to them from Sardis, they might not have been able tokeep up brave hearts.

  After two days of most cautious progress, during which the water becamesteadily shallower and shallower, it was discovered that the ice above,which they were now obliged to approach much more closely than they hadever done before, was comparatively thin, and broken in many places.Great cracks could be seen in it here and there, and movements couldbe discerned indicating that it was a floe, or floating mass of ice. Ifthat were the case, it was not impossible that they were now nearingthe edge of the ice under which they had so long been sailing, and thatbeyond them was the open water. If they could reach that, and find itthe unobstructed sea which was supposed to exist at this end of theearth's axis, their expedition was a success. At that moment they wereless than one hundred miles from the pole.

  Whether the voyagers on the Dipsey were more excited when the probablecondition of their situation became known to them, or whether RolandClewe and Margaret Raleigh in the office of the Works at Sardis were themore greatly moved when they received that day's report from the arcticregions, it would be hard to say. If there should be room enough for thelittle submarine vessel to safely navigate beneath the ice which therewas such good reason to believe was floating on the edge of the body ofwater they had come in search of, and on whose surface they might freelysail, what then was likely to hinder them from reaching the pole? Thepresence of ice in the vicinity of that extreme northern point wasfeared by no one concerned in the expedition, for it was believed thatthe rotary motion of the earth would have a tendency to drive it awayfrom the pole by centrifugal force.

  The little thermometer-boat which during the submarine voyage of theDipsey had constantly preceded her to give warning of the sunken base ofsome great iceberg, was now drawn in close to the bow; there was so muchice 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 thebottom of the sea became visible through the stout glass of a protectedwindow near the bow, and a man was placed there to report what he couldsee below them.

  It had now become so light that in some parts of the vessel the electriclamps were turned out. Fissures of considerable size appeared in the iceabove, and then, to the great excitement of every one, the vessel slowlymoved 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 movedcautiously on. Nobody thought of eating; they did not talk much, but atevery one of the outlooks there were eager faces.

  At last they saw nothing above them but floating fragments of ice. Stillthey kept on, until they were plainly moving below the surface of openwater. Then Mr. Gibbs looked at Sammy.

  "I think it is time to rise," said he; and Sammy passed the word thatthe Dipsey was going up into the upper air.

  When the little craft, so long submerged in the quiet depths of theArctic Sea, had risen until she rested on the surface of the water,there was no general desire, as there had been when she emerged intoLake Shiver, to rush upon the upper deck. Instead of that, the occupantsgathered together and looked at each other in a hesitating way, as ifthey were afraid to go out and see whether they were really in an opensea, 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 notwe have reached the open polar sea, but we must not be excited, and wemust not jump to hurried conclusions; we may have found what we are insearch of, and we may not have found it yet. But we will go up andlook out upon the polar world as far as we can see it, and we shallnot decide upon this thing or that until we have thoroughly studied thewhole situation. The engines are stopped, and every one may go up, butI advise you all to put on your warmest clothes. We should remember ourexperience at Lake Shiver."

  "It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Sammy Block, "to throw out a lot oftarpaulins to stand on, so that none of us will get frozen to the wetdeck, as happened before."

  When the hatch was opened a man with a black beard pushed himselfforward towards the companionway.

  "Keep back here, sir," said Mr. Marcy, clapping his hand upon the man'sshoulder.

  "I want to be ready to spread the tarpaulins, sir," said he, with awriggling 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 withthat he gave the eager Rovinski a staggering push to the rear.

  Five minutes a
fterwards Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe, sitting closetogether by the telegraph instrument in the Works at Sardis, receivedthe following message:

  "We have risen to the surface of what we believe to be the open polarsea. Everybody is on deck but me. It is very cold, and a wind isblowing. Off to our left there are high mountains, stretching westwardas far as we can see. They are all snow and ice, but they look blue andgreen and beautiful. From these mountains there comes this way a longcape, with a little mountain at the end of it. Mr. Gibbs says thismountain, which is about twenty miles away, must be just about betweenus and the pole, but it does not cut us off. Far out to the right, asfar as we can see, there is open water shining in the sun, so that wecan sail around the cape. On the right and behind us, southward, areeverlasting 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 someplaces they are smooth, and in some places they are tumbled up. On thevery edge of the sky, in that direction, there are more mountains. Thereare no animals or people anywhere. It is very cold, even inside thevessel. My fingers are stiff. Now that we are out on the water, inregular shipshape, Captain Jim Hubbell has taken command. We are goingto cruise northward as soon as we can get things regulated for outsidesailing.

  "SAMUEL BLOCK."