The interior of the submarine vessel was brightly lighted by
electric lamps, and the souls of the people inside of her soon
began to brighten under the influence of their work and the
interest they took in their novel undertaking; there was,
however, one exception--the soul of Mrs. Block did not brighten.

Mrs. Sarah Block was a peculiar person; she was her husband's
second wife, and was about forty years of age.  Her family were
country people, farmers, and her life as a child was passed among
folk as old-fashioned as if they had lived in the past century, and
had brought their old-fashioned ideas with them into this.  But
Sarah did not wish to be old-fashioned.  She sympathized with the
social movements of the day; she believed in inventions and
progress; she went to school and studied a great deal which her
parents never heard of, and which she very promptly forgot.  When
she grew up she wore the widest hoop-skirts; she was one of the
first to use an electric spinning-wheel; and when she took charge
of her father's house, she it was who banished to the garret the
old-fashioned sewing-machine, and the bicycles on which some of the
older members of the family once used to ride.  She tried to
persuade her father to use a hot-air plough, and to give up the
practice of keeping cows in an age when milk and butter were
considered not only unnecessary, but injurious to human health.
When she married Samuel Block, then a man of forty-five, she really
thought she did so because he was a person of progressive ideas,
but the truth was she married him because he loved her, and because
he did it in an honest, old-fashioned way.

In her inner soul Sarah was just as old-fashioned as anybody--she
had been born so, and she had never changed.  Endeavor as she
might to make herself believe that she was a woman of modern
thought and feeling, her soul was truly in sympathy with the
social fashions and customs in which she had been brought up; and
those to which she was trying to educate herself were on the
outside of her, never a part of her, but always the objects of
her aspirations.  These aspirations she believed to be principles.
She tried to set her mind upon the unfolding revelations of the
era, as young women in her grandfather's day used to try to set
their minds upon Browning.  When Sarah told Mr. Clewe that she was
going on the Dipsey because she would not let her husband go by
himself, she did so because she was ashamed to say that she was in
such sympathy with the great scientific movements of the day that
she thought it was her duty to associate herself with one of them;
but while she thought she was lying in the line of high principle,
she was in fact expressing the truthful affection of her
old-fashioned nature--a nature she was always endeavoring to keep
out of sight, but which from its dark corner ruled her life.

She had an old-fashioned temper, which delighted in
censoriousness.  The more interest she took in anything, the more
alive was she to its defects.  She tried to be a good member of
her church, but she said sharp things of the congregation.

No electrical illumination could brighten the soul of Mrs. Block.
She moved about the little vessel with a clouded countenance.
She was impressed with the feeling that something was wrong, even
now at the beginning, although of course she could not be expected
to know what it was.

At the bows, and in various places at the sides of the vessel,
and even in the bottom, were large plates of heavy glass, through
which the inmates could look out into the water, and there
streamed forward into the quiet depths of the ocean a great path
of light, proceeding from a powerful searchlight in the bow.  By
this light any object in the water could be seen some time before
reaching it; but to guard more thoroughly against the most
dreaded obstacle they feared to meet--down-reaching masses of
ice--a hydraulic thermometer, mounted on a little submarine
vessel connected with the Dipsey by wires, preceded her a long
distance ahead.  Impelled and guided by the batteries of the
larger vessel, this little thermometer-boat would send back
instant tidings of any changes in temperature in the water
occasioned by the proximity of ice.  To prevent sinking too deep,
a heavy lead, on which were several electric buttons, hung far
below the Dipsey, ready at all times, day or night, to give
notice if she came too near the reefs and sands of the bottom of
the Arctic Ocean.

The steward had just announced that the first meal on board the
Dipsey was ready for the officers' mess, when Mrs. Block suddenly
rushed into the cabin.

"Look here, Sammy," she exclaimed; "I want you, or somebody who
knows more than you do, to tell me how the people on this vessel
are goin' to get air to breathe with.  It has just struck me that
when we have breathed up all the air that's inside, we will
simply suffocate, just as if we were drowned outside a boat
instead of inside; and for my part I can't see any difference,
except in one case we keep dry and in the other we are wet."

"More than that, madam," said Mr. Gibbs, the Master Electrician,
who, in fact, occupied the rank of first officer of the vessel;
"if we are drowned outside in the open water we shall be food for
fishes, whereas if we suffocate inside the vessel we shall only
be food for reflection, if anybody ever finds us."

"You did not come out expectin' that, I hope?" said Mrs. Block.
"I thought something would happen when we started, but I never
supposed we would run short of air."

"Don't bother yourself about that, Sarah," said Sammy.  "We'll
have all the air we want; of course we would not start without
thinkin' of that."

"I don't know," said Sarah.  "It's very seldom that men start off
anywhere without forgettin' somethin'."

"Let us take our seats, Mrs. Block," said Mr. Gibbs, "and I will
set your mind at rest on the air point.  There are a great many
machines and mechanical arrangements on board here which of course
you don't understand, but which I shall take great pleasure in
explaining to you whenever you want to learn something about them.
Among them are two great metal contrivances, outside the Dipsey and
near her bows, which open into the water, and also communicate with
the inside of her hull.  These are called electric gills, and they
separate air from the water around us in a manner somewhat
resembling the way in which a fish's gills act.  They continually
send in air enough to supply us not only with all we need for
breathing, but with enough to raise us to the surface of the water
whenever we choose to produce it in sufficient quantities."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Block, "and I hope the machines
will never get out of order.  But I should think that sort of
air, made fresh from the water, would be very damp.  It's very
different from the air we are used to, which is warmed by the sun
and properly aired."

"Aired air seems funny to me," remarked Sammy.

There was fascination, not at all surprising, about the great
glass lights in the Dipsey, and whenever a man was off duty he
was pretty sure to be at one of these windows if he could get
there.  At first Mrs. Block was afraid to look out of any of
them.  It made her blood creep, she said, to stare out into all
that solemn water.  For the first two days, when she could get no
one to talk to her, she passed most of her time sitting in the
cabin, holding in one of her hands a dustbrush, and in the other
a farmer's almanac.  She did not use the brush, nor did she read
the almanac, but they reminded her of home and the world which
was real.

But when she did make up her mind to look out of the windows, she
became greatly interested, especially at the bow, where she could
gaze out into the water illuminated by the long lane of light
thrown out by the search-light.  Here she continually imagined
she saw things, and sometimes greatly startled the men on lookout
by her exclamations.  Once she thought she saw a floating corpse,
but fortunately it was Sammy who was by her when she proclaimed
her discovery, and he did not believe in any such nonsense,
suggesting that it might have been some sort of a fish.  After
that the idea of fish filled the mind of Mrs. Block, and she set
herself to work to search in an encyclopaedia which was on board
for descriptions of fishes which inhabited the depths of the
arctic seas.  To meet a whale, she thought, would be very bad,
but then a whale is clumsy and soft; a sword-fish was what she
most dreaded.  A sword-fish running his sword through one of the
glass windows, and perhaps coming in himself along with the water,
sent a chill down her back every time she thought about it and
talked about it.

"You needn't be afraid of sword-fishes," said Captain Jim
Hubbell.  "They don't fancy the cold water we are sailin' in; and
as to whales, don't you know, madam, there ain't no more of 'em?"

"No more whales!" exclaimed Sarah.  "I have heard about 'em all
my life!"

"Oh, you can read and hear about 'em easy enough," replied Captain
Jim, "but you nor nobody else will ever see none of 'em ag'in--at
least, in this part of the world.  Sperm-whales began gittin' scarce
when I was a boy, and pretty soon there was nothin' left but
bow-head or right whales, that tried to keep out of the way of
human bein's by livin' far up North; but when they came to shootin'
'em with cannons which would carry three or four miles, the whale's
day was up, and he got scarcer and scarcer, until he faded out
altogether.  There was a British vessel, the Barkright, that killed
two bow-head whales in 1935, north of Melville Island, but since
that time there hasn't been a whale seen in all the arctic waters.
I have heard that said by sailors, and I have read about it.  They
have all been killed, and nothin' left of 'em but the skeletons
that's in the museums."

Mrs. Block shuddered.  "It would be terrible to meet a livin'
one, and yet it is an awful thought to think that they are all
dead and gone," said she.




CHAPTER VI

VOICES FROM THE POLAR SEAS


Although Sammy Block and his companions were not only far up among
the mysteries of the region of everlasting ice, and were sunk out
of sight, so that their vessel had become one of these mysteries,
it was still perfectly possible for them to communicate, by means
of the telegraphic wire which was continually unrolling astern,
with people all over the world.  But this communication was a matter
which required great judgment and caution, and it had been a
subject of very careful consideration by Roland Clewe.

When he had returned to Cape Tariff, after parting with the Dipsey,
he had received several messages from Sammy, which assured him that
the submarine voyage was proceeding satisfactorily.  But when he
went on board the Go Lightly and started homeward, he would be able
to hear nothing more from the submarine voyagers until he reached
St. John's, Newfoundland--the first place at which his vessel would
touch.  Of course constant communication with Sardis would be kept
up, but this communication might be the source of great danger to
the plans of Roland Clewe.  Whatever messages of importance came
from the depths of the arctic regions he wished to come only to him
or to Mrs. Raleigh.  He had contrived a telegraphic cipher, known
only to Mrs. Raleigh, Sammy, and two officers of the Dipsey, and,
to insure secrecy, Sammy had been strictly enjoined to send no
information in any other way than in this cipher.

For years there had been men, both in America and in Europe, who
had been watching with jealous scrutiny the inventions and
researches of Roland Clewe, and he well understood that if they
should discover his processes and plans before they were brought
to successful completion he must expect to be robbed of many of
the results of his labors.  The first news that came to him on
his recent return to America had been the tale told by Sammy
Block, of the man in the air who had been endeavoring to peer
down into his lens-house, and he had heard of other attempts of
this kind.  Therefore it was that the telegraphic instrument on
the Dipsey had been given into the sole charge of Samuel Block,
who had become a very capable operator, and who could be relied
upon to send no news over his wire which could give serviceable
information to the operators along the line from Cape Tariff to
Sardis, New Jersey.

But Clewe did not in the least desire that Margaret Raleigh
should be kept waiting until he came back from the arctic regions
for news from the expedition, which she as well as himself had
sent out into the unknown North.  Consequently Samuel Block had
been told that he might communicate with Mrs. Raleigh as soon and
as often as he pleased, remembering always to be careful never to
send any word which might reveal anything to the detriment of his
employers.  When a message should be received on board the Dipsey
that Mr. Clewe was ready to communicate with her, frequent
reports were expected from the Master Electrician, but it would
be Sammy who would unlock the cover which had been placed over
the instrument.

Before he retired to his bunk on the first night on board the
Dipsey, Sammy thought it proper to send a message to Mrs.
Raleigh.  He had not telegraphed before because he knew that Mr.
Clewe would communicate fully before he left Cape Tariff.

Margaret Raleigh had gone to bed late, and had been lying for an
hour or two unable to sleep, so busy was her mind with the
wonderful things which were happening in the far-away polar
regions--strange and awful things--in which she had such a direct
and lively interest.  She had heard, from Roland Clewe, of the
successful beginning of the Dipsey's voyage, and before she had
gone to her chamber she had received a last message from him on
leaving Cape Tariff; and now, as she lay there in her bed, her
whole soul was occupied with thoughts of that little party of
people--some of them so well known to her--all of them sent out
upon this perilous and frightful expedition by her consent and
assistance, and now left alone to work their way through the dread
and silent waters that underlie the awful ice regions of the pole.
She felt that so long as she had a mind she could not help thinking
of them, and so long as she thought of them she could not sleep.

Suddenly there was a ring at the door, which made her start and
spring from her bed, and shortly a telegraphic message was
brought to her by a maid.  It was from the depths of the Arctic
Ocean, and read as follows:

"Getting on very well.  No motion.  Not cold.  Slight rheumatism
in Sarah's shoulder.  Wants to know which side of plasters you
gave her goes next skin,

                                         "SAMUEL BLOCK."

An hour afterwards there flashed farther northward than ever
current from a battery had gone before an earnest, cordial,
almost affectionate message from Margaret Raleigh to Sarah Block,
and it concluded with the information that it was the rough side
of the plasters which should go next to the skin.  After that
Mrs. Raleigh went to bed with a peaceful mind and slept soundly.

Frequent communications, always of a friendly or domestic nature,
passed between the polar sea and Sardis during the next few days.
Mrs. Raleigh would have telegraphed a good deal more than she did
had it not been for the great expense from Sardis to Cape Tariff,
and Sarah Block was held in restraint, not by pecuniary
considerations, but by Sammy's sense of the fitness of things.
He nearly always edited her messages, even when he consented to
send them.  One communication he positively refused to transmit.
She came to him in a great flurry.

"Sammy," said she, "I have just found out something, and I can't
rest until I have told Mrs. Raleigh.  I won't mention it here,
because it might frighten some people into fits and spasms.
Sammy, do you know there are thirteen people on board this boat?"

"Sarah Block!" ejaculated her husband, "what in the name of
common-sense are you talkin' about?  What earthly difference can
it make whether there are thirteen people on this vessel or
twelve?  And if it did make any difference, what are you goin' to
do about it?  Do you expect anybody to get out?"

"Of course I don't," replied Sarah; "although there are some of
them that would not have come in if I had had my say about it;
but as Mrs. Raleigh is one of the owners, and such a good friend
to you and me, Sammy, it is our duty to let her know what
dreadful bad luck we are carryin' with us."

"Don't you suppose she knows how many people are aboard?" said
Sammy.

"Of course she knows; but she don't consider what it means, or we
wouldn't all have been here.  It is her right to know, Sammy.
Perhaps she might order us to go back to Cape Tariff and put
somebody ashore."

In his heart Samuel Block believed that if this course were
adopted he was pretty sure who would be put on shore, if a vote
were taken by officers and crew; but he was too wise to say
anything upon this point, and contented himself with positively
refusing to send southward any news of the evil omen.

The next day Mrs. Block felt that she must speak upon the subject
or perish, and she asked Mr. Gibbs what he thought of there being
thirteen people on board.

"Madam," said he, "these signs lose all their powers above the
seventieth parallel of latitude.  In fact, none of them have ever
been known to come true above sixty-eight degrees and forty
minutes, and we are a good deal higher than that, you know."

Sarah made no answer, but she told her husband afterwards that she
thought that Mr. Gibbs had his mind so full of electricity that it
had no room for old-fashioned common-sense.  It did not do to sneer
at signs and portents.  Among the earliest things she remembered was
a story which had been told her of her grandmother's brother, who
was the thirteenth passenger in an omnibus when he was a young man,
and who died that very night, having slipped off the back step,
where he was obliged to stand, and fractured his skull.

At last there came a day when a message in cipher from Roland
Clewe delivered itself on board the Dipsey, and from that moment
a hitherto unknown sense of security seemed to pervade the minds
of officers and crew.  To be sure, there was no good reason for
this, for if disaster should overtake them, or even threaten
them, there was no submarine boat ready to send to their rescue;
and if there had been, it would be long, long before such aid
could reach them; but still, they were comforted, encouraged, and
cheered.  Now, if anything happened, they could send news of it
to the man in whom they all trusted, and through him to their
homes, and whatever their far-away friends had to say to them
could be said without reserve.

There was nothing yet of definite scientific importance to report,
but the messages of the Master Electrician were frequent and long,
regardless of expense, and, so far as her husband would permit her,
Sarah Block informed Mrs. Raleigh of the discouragements and
dangers which awaited this expedition.  It must be said, however,
that Mrs. Block never proposed to send back one word which should
indicate that she was in favor of the abandonment of the
expedition, or of her retirement from it should opportunity allow.
She had set out for the north pole because Sammy was going there,
and the longer she went "polin'" with him, the stronger became her
curiosity to see the pole and to know what it looked like.

The Dipsey was not expected to be, under any circumstances, a
swift vessel, and now, retarded by her outside attachments, she
moved but slowly under the waters.  The telegraphic wire which
she laid as she proceeded was the thinnest and lightest submarine
cable ever manufactured, but the mass of it was of great weight,
and as it found its way to the bottom it much retarded the
progress of the vessel, which moved more slowly than was
absolutely necessary, for fear of breaking this connection with
the living world.

Onward, but a few knots an hour, the Dipsey moved like a fish in
the midst of the sea.  The projectors of the enterprise had a
firm belief that there was a channel from Baffin's Bay into an
open polar sea, which would be navigable if its entrance were not
blocked up by ice, and on this belief were based all their hopes
of success.  So the explorers pressed steadily onward, always
with an anxious lookout above them for fear of striking the
overhanging ice, always with an anxious lookout below for fear of
dangers which might loom up from the bottom, always with an
anxious lookout starboard for fear of running against the
foundations of Greenland, always with an anxious lookout to port
for fear of striking the groundwork of the unknown land to the
west, and always keeping a lookout in every direction for
whatever revelation these unknown waters might choose to make to
them.

Captain Jim Hubbell had no sympathy with the methods of
navigation practised on board the Dipsey.  So long as he could
not go out on deck and take his noon observations, he did not
believe it would be possible for him to know exactly where his
vessel was; but he accepted the situation, and objected to none
of the methods of the scientific navigators.

"It's a mighty simple way of sailin'," he said to Sammy.  "As
long as there's water to sail in, you have just got to git on a
line of longitude--it doesn't matter what line, so long as
there's water ahead of you--and keep there; and so long as you
steer due north, always takin' care not to switch off to the
magnetic pole, of course you will keep there; and as all lines of
longitude come to the same point at last, and as that's the point
you are sailin' for, of course, if you can keep on that line of
longitude as long as it lasts, it follows that you are bound to
git there.  If you come to any place on this line of longitude
where there's not enough water to sail her, you have got to stop
her; and then, if you can't see any way of goin' ahead on another
line of longitude, you can put her about and go out of this on
the same line of longitude that you came up into it on, and so
you may expect to find a way clear.  It's mighty simple sailin'
--regular spellin' book navigation--but it isn't the right thing."

"It seems that way, Cap'n Jim," said Sammy, "and I expect there's
a long stretch of underwater business ahead of us yet, but still
we can't tell.  How do we know that we will not get up some
mornin' soon and look out of the upper skylight and see nothin'
but water over us and daylight beyond that?"

"When we do that, Sammy," said Captain Jim, "then I'll truly
believe I'm on a v'yage!"




CHAPTER VII

GOOD NEWS GOES FROM SARDIS


When Roland Clewe, after a voyage from Cape Tariff which would
have been tedious to him no matter how short it had been, arrived
at Sardis, his mind was mainly occupied with the people he had
left behind him engulfed in the arctic seas, but this important
subject did not prevent him from also giving attention to the
other great object upon which his soul was bent.  At St. John's,
and at various points on his journey from there, he had received
messages from the Dipsey, so that he knew that so far all was
well, and when he met Mrs. Raleigh she had much to tell him of
what might have been called the domestic affairs of the little
vessel.

But while keeping himself in touch, as it were, with the polar
regions, Roland Clewe longed to use the means he believed he
possessed of peering into the subterranean mysteries of the earth
beneath him.  Work on the great machine by which he would
generate his Artesian ray had been going on very satisfactorily,
and there was every reason to believe that he would soon be able
to put it into operation.

He had found Margaret Raleigh a different woman from what she had
been when he left her.

The absence had been short, but the change in her was very
perceptible.  She was quieter; she was more intent.  She had always
taken a great interest in his undertakings, but now that interest
not only seemed to be deepened, but it was clouded by a certain
anxiety.  She had been an ardent, cheerful, and hopeful co-worker
with him, so far as she was able to do so; but now, although she
was quite as ardent, the cheerfulness had disappeared, and she did
not allude to the hopefulness.

But this did not surprise Clewe; he thought it the most natural
thing in the world; for that polar expedition was enough to cloud
the spirits of any woman who had an active part and share in it,
and who was bound to feel that much of the responsibility of it
rested upon her.  At times this responsibility rested very
heavily upon himself.  But if thoughts of that little submerged
party at the desolate end of the world came to him as he sat in
his comfortable chair, and a cold dread shot through him, as it
was apt to do at such times, he would hurriedly step to his
telegraphic instrument, and when he had heard from Sammy Block
that all was well with them, his spirits would rise again, and he
would go on with his work with a soul cheered and encouraged.

But good news from the North did not appear to cheer and
encourage the soul of Mrs. Raleigh.  She seemed anxious and
troubled even after she had heard it.

"Mr. Clewe," said she, when he had called upon her the next
morning after his return, "suppose you were to hear bad news from
the Dipsey, or were to hear nothing at all--were to get no answer
to your messages--what would you do?"

His face grew troubled.

"That is a terrible question," he said.  "It is one I have often
asked myself; but there is no satisfactory answer to it.  Of course,
as I have told myself and have told you, there seems no reason to
expect a disaster.  There are no storms in the quiet depths in which
the Dipsey is sailing.  Ice does not sink down from the surface, and
even if a floating iceberg should turn over, as they sometimes do
in the more open sea, the Dipsey will keep low enough to avoid such
danger.  In fact, I feel almost sure that if she should meet with
any obstacle which would prevent her from keeping on her course to
the pole, all she would have to do would be to turn around and come
back.  As to the possibility of receiving no messages, I should
conclude in that case that the wire had broken, and should wait a
few days before allowing myself to be seriously alarmed.  We have
provided against such an accident.  The Dipsey is equipped as a
cable-laying vessel, and if her broken wire is not at too great a
depth, she could recover it; but I have given orders that should
such an accident occur, and they cannot reestablish communication,
they must return."

"Where to?" asked Mrs. Raleigh.

"To Cape Tariff, of course.  The Dipsey cannot navigate the
surface of the ocean for any considerable distance."

"And then?" she asked.

"I would go as quickly as possible to St. John's, where I have
arranged that a vessel shall be ready for me, and I would meet
the party at Cape Tariff, and there plan for a resumption of the
enterprise, or bring them home.  If they should not be able to
get back to Cape Tariff, then all is blank before me.  We must
not think of it."

"But you will go up there all the same?" she said.

"Oh yes, I will go there."

Mrs. Raleigh made no answer, but sat looking upon the floor.

"But why should we trouble ourselves with these fears?" continued
Clewe.  "We have considered all probable dangers and have
provided against them, and at this moment everything is going on
admirably, and there is every reason why we should feel hopeful
and encouraged.  I am sorry to see you look so anxious and
downcast."

"Mr. Clewe," said she, "I have many anxieties; that is natural,
and I cannot help it, but there is only one fear which seriously
affects me."

"And that makes you pale," said Clewe.  "Are you afraid that if I
begin work with the Artesian ray I shall become so interested in
it that I shall forget our friends up there in the North?  There
is no danger.  No matter what I might be doing with the ray, I
can disconnect the batteries in an instant, lock up the lens-house,
and in the next half-hour start for St. John's.  Then I will go
North if there is anything needed to be done there which human
beings can do."

She looked at him steadfastly.

"That is what I am afraid of," she said.

Roland Clewe did not immediately speak.  To him Margaret Raleigh
was two persons.  She was a woman of business, earnest,
thoughtful, helpful, generous, and wise; a woman with whom he
worked, consulted, planned, who made it possible for him to carry
on the researches and enterprises to which he had devoted his
life.  But, more than this, she was another being; she was a
woman he loved, with a warm, passionate love, which grew day by
day, and which a year ago had threatened to break down every
barrier of prudence, and throw him upon his knees before her as a
humiliated creature who had been pretending to love knowledge,
philosophy, and science, but in reality had been loving beauty
and riches.  It was the fear of this catastrophe which had had a
strong influence in taking him to Europe.

But now, by some magical influence--an influence which he was not
sure he understood--that first woman, the woman of business, his
partner, his co-worker, had disappeared, and there sat before him
the woman he loved.  He felt in his soul that if he tried to
banish her it would be impossible; by no word or act could he at
this moment bring back the other.

"Margaret Raleigh," he said, suddenly, "you have thrown me from
my balance.  Yon may not believe it, you may not be able to
imagine the possibility of it, but a spirit, a fiery spirit which
I have long kept bound up within me, has burst its bonds and has
taken possession of me.  It may be a devil or it may be an angel,
but it holds me and rules me, and it was set loose by the words
you have just spoken.  It is my love for you, Margaret Raleigh!"
He went on, speaking rapidly.  "Now tell me," said he.  "I have
often come to you for advice and help--give it to me now.  In
laboratory, workshop, office, with you and away from you, abroad
and at home, by day and by night, always and everywhere I have
loved you, longed for a sight of you, for a word from you, even
if it had been a word about a stick or a pin.  And always and
everywhere I have determined to be true to myself, true to you,
true to every principle of honor and common-sense, and to say
nothing to you of love until by some success I have achieved the
right to do so.  By words which made me fancy that you showed a
personal interest in me, you have banished all those resolutions;
you have--But I am getting madder and madder.  Shall I leave this
room?  Shall I swear never to speak--"

She looked up at him.  The ashiness had gone out of her face.
Her eyes were bright, and as she lifted them towards him a golden
softness and mistiness came into the centre of each of them, as
though he might look down through them into her soul.

"If I were you," said she, "I would stay here and say whatever
else you have to say."

He told her what more he had to say, but it was with his arms
around her and his eyes close to hers.

"Do you know," she said, a little afterwards, "that for years,
while you have been longing to get to the pole, to see down into
the earth, and to accomplish all the other wonderful things that
you are working at in your shops, I too have been longing to do
something--longing hundreds and hundreds of times when we were
talking about batteries and lenses and of the enterprises we have
had on hand."

"And what was that?" he asked.

"It was to push back this lock of hair from your forehead.
There, now; you don't know how much better you look!"

Before Clewe left the house it was decided that if in any case it
should become necessary for him to start for the polar regions
these two were to be married with all possible promptness, and
they were to go to the North together.

That afternoon the happy couple met again and composed a message
to the arctic seas.  It was not deemed necessary yet to announce
to society what had happened, but they both felt that their
friends who were so far away, so completely shut out from all
relations with the world, and yet so intimately connected with
them, should know that Margaret Raleigh and Roland Clewe were
engaged to be married.

Roland sent the message that evening from his office.  He waited
an unusually long time for a reply, but at last it came, from
Sammy.  The cipher, when translated, ran as follows:

"Everybody as glad as they can be.  Specially Sarah.  Will send
regular congratulations.  Private message soon from me.  We have
got the devil on board."

Clewe was astonished: Samuel Block was such a quiet, steady
person, so unused to extravagance or excitement, that this
sensational message was entirely beyond his comprehension.  He
could fix no possible meaning to it, and he was glad that it did
not come when he was in company with Margaret.  It was too late
to disturb her now, and he most earnestly hoped that an
explanation would come before he saw her again.

That night he dreamed that there was a great opening near the
pole, which was the approach to the lower regions, and that the
Dipsey had been boarded by a diabolical passenger, who had come
to examine her papers and inquire into the health of her
passengers and crew.




CHAPTER VIII

THE DEVIL ON THE DIPSEY


After a troubled night, Roland Clewe rose early.  He had made up
his mind that what Sammy had to communicate was something of a
secret, otherwise it would have been telegraphed at once.  For
this reason he had not sent him a message asking for immediate
and full particulars, but had waited.  Now, however, he felt he
could wait no longer; he must know something definite before he
saw Margaret.  Not to excite suspicion by telegraphing at
untimely hours, he had waited until morning, and as the Dipsey
was in about the same longitude as Sardis, and as they kept
regular hours on board, without regard to the day and night of
the arctic regions, he knew that he would not now be likely to
rouse anybody from his slumbers by "calling up" the pole.

Although the telephone had been brought to such wonderful
perfection in these days, Roland Clewe had never thought of using
it for purposes of communication with the Dipsey.  The necessary
wire would have been too heavy, and his messages could not have
been kept secret.  In fact, this telegraphic communication
between Sardis and the submarine vessel was almost as primitive
as that in use in the latter part of the nineteenth century.

But Clewe had scarcely entered the office when he was surprised
by the sound of the instrument, and he soon found that Sammy was
calling to him from the polar seas.  He sat down instantly and
received this message:

"Could not send more last night.  Gibbs came in.  Did not want
him to know until I had heard from you.  That Pole, Rovinski, is
on board.  Never knew it until yesterday.  Had shaved off his
beard and had his head cropped.  He let it grow, and I spotted
him.  There is no mistake.  I know him, but he has not found it
out.  He is on board to get ahead of you some way or other
--perhaps get up a mutiny and go to the pole himself.  He is the
wickedest-looking man I ever saw, and he scared me when I first
recognized him.  Will send news as long as I am on hand.  Let me
know what you think.  I want to chuck him into the scuttle-box.

                                         "SAMUEL BLOCK."

"If that could be done," said Clewe to himself, "it would be an
end to a great many troubles."

The scuttle-box on the submarine vessel was a contrivance for
throwing things overboard.  It consisted of a steel box about six
feet long and two feet square at the ends, and with a tightly
fitting door at each extremity.  When this scuttle-box was used
it was run down through a square opening in the bottom of the
Dipsey, the upper door was opened, matter to be disposed of was
thrown into it, the upper door was shut and the lower one opened,
whereupon everything inside of it descended into the sea, and
water filled the box.  When this box was drawn up by means of its
machinery, the water was forced out, so that when it was entirely
inside the vessel it was empty, and then the lower door was
closed.  For some moments the idea suggested by Sammy was very
attractive to Clewe, and he could not help thinking that the
occasion might arise when it would be perfectly proper to carry
it into execution.

Now that he knew the import of Sammy's extraordinary
communication, he felt that it would not be right to withhold his
knowledge from Margaret.  Of course it might frighten her very
much, but this was an enterprise in which people should expect to
be frightened.  Full confidence and hearty assistance were what
these two now expected from each other.

"What is it exactly that you fear?" she asked, when she had heard
the news.

"That is hard to say," replied Roland.  "This man Rovinski is a
scientific jackal; he has ambitions of the very highest kind, and
he seeks to gratify them by fraud and villainy.  It is now nearly
two years since I have found out that he has been shadowing me,
endeavoring to discover what I am doing and how I am doing it;
and the moment he does get a practical and working knowledge of
anything, he will go on with the business on my lines as far as
he can.  Perhaps he may succeed, and, in any case, he will be
almost certain to ruin my chances of success--that is, if I were
not willing to buy him off.  He would be pretty sure to try
blackmail if he found he could not make good use of the knowledge
he had stolen."

"The wretch!" cried Margaret.  "Do you suppose he hopes to snatch
from you the discovery of the pole?"

"That seems obvious," replied Roland, "and it's what Sammy
thinks.  It is the greatest pity in the world he was not
discovered before he got on the Dipsey."

"But what can you do?" cried Margaret.

"I cannot imagine," he replied, "unless I recall the Dipsey to
Cape Tariff, and go up there and have him apprehended."

"Couldn't he be apprehended where he is?" she asked.  "There are
enough men on board to capture him and shut him up somewhere
where he could do no harm."

"I have thought of that," answered Roland, "but it would be a
very difficult and delicate thing to do.  The men we have on
board the Dipsey are trusty fellows--at least, I thought so when
they were engaged--but there is no knowing what mutinous poison
this Pole may have infused into their minds.  If one of their
number should be handcuffed and shut up without good reason being
given, they might naturally rebel, and it would be very hard to
give satisfactory reasons for arresting Rovinski.  Even Gibbs
might object to such harshness upon grounds which might seem to
him vague and insufficient.  Sammy knows Rovinski, I know him,
but the others do not, and it might be difficult to convince them
that he is the black-hearted scoundrel we think him; so we must
be very careful what we do."

"As to calling the Dipsey back," said Margaret, "I would not do
it; I would take the risks."

"I think you are right," said Clewe.  "I have a feeling that if
they come back to Cape Tariff they will not go out again.  Some
of the men may be discouraged already, and it would produce a bad
impression upon all of them to turn back for some reason which
they did not understand, or for a reason such as we could give
them.  I would not like to have to bring them back, now that they
are getting on so well."

In the course of the morning there came from the officers, men,
and passenger of the Dipsey a very cordial and pleasant message
to Mr. Clewe and Mrs. Raleigh, congratulating them upon the happy
event of which they had been informed.  Sarah Block insisted on
sending a supplementary message for herself, in which she was
privately congratulatory to as great an extent as her husband
would allow her to go, and which ended with a hope that if they
lived to be married they would content themselves with doing
their explorations on solid ground.  She did not want to come
back until she had seen the pole, but some of her ideas about
that kind of travelling were getting to be a good deal more fixed
than they had been.

The advice which Roland Clewe gave to Samuel Block was simple
enough and perhaps unnecessary, but there was noshing else for
him to say.  He urged that the strictest watch be kept on
Rovinski; that he should never be allowed to go near the
telegraph instrument; and if, by insubordination or any bad
conduct, a pretext for his punishment should offer itself, he
should be immediately shut up where he could not communicate with
the men.  It was very important to keep him as much as possible
in ignorance of what was going on and of what should be
accomplished; that, after all, was the main point.  If the pole
should be discovered, Rovinski must have nothing to do with it.
Sammy replied that everything should he reported as soon as it
turned up, and any orders received from Mr. Clewe should be
carried out so long as he was alive to help carry them.

"Now," said Roland to Margaret, "there's nothing more that we can
do in regard to that affair.  As soon as there are any new
developments we shall have to consider it again, but until then
let us give up our whole souls to each other and the Artesian
ray."

"It seems to me," said she, "that if we could have discovered a
good while ago some sort of ray by which we could see into each
other's souls, we should have gained a great many hours which are
now lost."

"Not at all," replied Clewe; "they are not lost.  In our
philosophy, nothing is lost.  All the joys we have missed in days
that are past shall be crowded into the days that are to come."




CHAPTER IX

THE ARTESIAN RAY


In less than a week after the engagement of Roland Clewe and
Margaret Raleigh work on the great machine which was to generate
the Artesian ray had so far progressed that it was possible to
make some preliminary experiments with it.  Although Clewe was
sorry to think of the very undesirable companion which Samuel
Block had carried with him into the polar regions, he could not
but feel a certain satisfaction when he reflected that there was
now no danger of Rovinski gaining any knowledge of the momentous
operations which he had in hand in Sardis.  He had had frequent
telegrams from Sammy, but no trouble of any kind had yet arisen.
It was true that the time for trouble, if there were to be any,
had probably not yet arrived, but Clewe could not afford to
disturb his mind with anticipations of disagreeable things which
might happen.

The masses of lenses, batteries, tubes, and coils which
constituted the new instrument had been set up in the
lens-house, and it was with this invention that Clewe had
succeeded in producing that new form of light which would not
only penetrate any material substance, but illuminate and render
transparent everything through which it passed, and which would,
it was hoped, extend itself into the earth to a depth only
limited by the electric power used to generate it.

Margaret was very anxious to be present at the first experiment,
but Clewe was not willing that this should be.

"It is almost certain," he said, "that there will be failures at
first, not caused perhaps by any radical defects in the
apparatus, but by some minor fault in some part of it.  This
almost always happens in a new machine, and then there are
uninteresting work and depressing waiting.  As soon as I see that
my invention will act as I want it to act, I shall have you in
the lens-house with me.  We may not be able to do very much at
first, but when I really begin to do anything I want both of us
to see it done."

There was no flooring in that part of the lens-house where the
machine was set up, for Clewe wished his new light to operate
directly upon the earth.  At about eight feet above the ground
was the opening through which the Artesian ray would pass
perpendicularly downward whenever the lever should be moved
which would connect the main electric current.

When all was ready, Clewe sent every one, even Bryce, the
master-workman, from the room.  If his invention should totally
fail, he wanted no one but himself to witness that failure; but if
it should succeed, or even give promise of doing so, he would
be glad to have the eyes of his trusted associates witness that
success.  When the doors were shut and locked, Clewe moved a
lever, and a disk of light three feet in diameter immediately
appeared upon the ground.  It was a colorless light, but it
seemed to give a more vivid hue to everything it shone upon--such
as the little stones, a piece of wood half embedded in the earth,
grains of sand, and pieces of mortar.  In a few seconds, however,
these things all disappeared, and there revealed itself to the
eyes of Clewe a perfectly smooth surface of brown earth.  This
continued for some little time, now and then a rounded or a
flattened stone appearing in it, and then gradually fading away.

As Clewe stared intently down upon the illuminated space, the
brown earth seemed to melt and disappear, and he gazed upon a
surface of fine sand, dark or yellowish, thickly interspersed
with gravel-stones.  This appearance changed, and a large rounded
stone was seen almost in the centre of the glowing disk.  The
worn and smooth surface of the stone faded away, and he beheld
what looked like a split section of a cobble-stone.  Then it
disappeared altogether, and there was another flat surface of
gravel and sand.

Between himself and the illuminated space on which he gazed--his
breath quick and his eyes widely distended--there seemed to be
nothing at all.  To all appearances he was looking into a
cylindrical hole a few feet deep.  Everything between the bottom
of this hole and himself was invisible; the light had made
intervening substances transparent, and had deprived them of
color and outlines.  It was as though he looked through air.

Then his eyes fell upon the sides of this cylindrical opening,
and these, illuminated, but not otherwise acted upon by the
volume of Artesian rays, showed, in all their true colors and
forms, everything which went to make up the sides of the bright
cavity into which he looked.  He saw the various strata of clay,
sand, gravel, exactly as he would have seen them in a circular
hole cut accurately and smoothly into the earth.  No stone or
lump protruded from the side of this apparent excavation, the
inner surface of which was as smooth as if it had been cut down
with a sharp instrument.

Clewe was frightened.  Was it possible that this could be an
imaginary cavity into which he was looking?  He drew back; he was
about to put out one foot to feel if it were really solid ground
upon which this light was pouring, but he refrained.  He got a
long stick, and with it touched the centre of the light.  What he
felt was hard and solid; the end of the stick seemed to melt, and
this startled him.  He pulled back the stick--he could go on no
further by himself.  He must have somebody in here with him; he
must have the testimony of some other eyes; he needed the company
of a man with a cool and steady brain.

He ran to the door and called Bryce.  When the
master-workman had entered and the door had been locked behind
him, he exclaimed, "How pale you are!  Does it work?"

"I think so," said Clewe; "but perhaps I am crazy and only
imagine it.  You see that circular patch of light upon the ground
there?  I want you to go close to it and look down upon it, and
tell me what you see."

Bryce stepped quickly to the illuminated space.  He looked down
at it; then he approached nearer; then he carefully placed his
feet by its edge and leaned over further, gazing intently
downward, and he exclaimed, "Good heavens!  How did you make
the hole?"

At that moment he heard a groan, and, looking across the
illuminated space, he saw Clewe tottering.  In the next moment he
was stretched upon the ground in a dead faint.

When Bryce had hurried to the side of his employer and had thrown
a pitcher of water over him, it was not long before Clewe
revived.  In answer to Bryce's inquiries he simply replied that
he supposed he had been too much excited by the success of his
work.

"You see," said he, "that was not a hole at all that you were
looking into; it was the solid earth made transparent by the
Artesian ray.  The thing works perfectly.  Please step to that
lever and turn it off.  I can stand no more at present."

Bryce moved the lever, and the light upon the ground disappeared.
He approached the place where it had been; it was nothing but
common earth.  He put his foot upon it; he stamped; it was as
solid as any other part of the State.

"And yet I have looked down into it," he ejaculated, "at least
half a dozen feet!"

When Bryce turned and went back to Clewe, he too was pale.

"I do not wonder you fainted," said he.  "I do not believe it was
what you saw that upset you; it was what you expected to see
--wasn't that it?"

Clewe nodded in an indefinite way.  "We won't talk about it now,"
said he.  "I don't want any more experiments to-day.  We will
cover up the instrument and go."

When Roland Clewe reached his room, he sat down in the
arm-chair to think.  He had made a grand and wonderful success,
but it was not upon that that his mind was now fixed.  It was
upon the casual and accidental effect of the work of his
invention, of which he had never dreamed.  Bryce had made a great
mistake in thinking that it was not what Roland Clewe had seen,
but what he had expected to see, which had caused him to drop
insensible.  It was what he had seen.

When the master-workman had approached the lighted space upon the
ground, Clewe stood opposite to him, a little distance from the
apparatus.  As Bryce looked down, he leaned forward more and
more, until the greater part of his body was directly over the
lighted space.  Looking at him, Clewe was startled, amazed, and
horrified to find all that portion of his person which projected
itself into the limits of the light had entirely disappeared, and
that he was gazing upon a section of a man's trunk, brightly
illuminated, and displayed in all its internal colors and
outlines.  Such a sight was enough to take away the senses of any
man, and he did not wonder that he had fainted.