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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.
Clewe would have gone immediately to confer with the secretary of the railroad company, with whom he was acquainted. but that gentleman was at the sea-side, and the business was necessarily postponed. "Now," said Clewe to Margaret, "if I could do it, I'd like to take a run up to the polar sea and see for myself what they have discovered.
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.
In the floor of the car were grated openings, through which Clewe could look downward; but although the shaft below him was brilliantly illuminated by electric lights placed under the car, it did not frighten him or make him dizzy to look down, for the aperture did not appear to be very far below him.
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.
When, at last, the noise of machinery above him and the sound of voices aroused him from his abstraction, the car emerged upon the surface of the earth, Clewe hastily slid back the door and stepped out. At that instant he felt himself encircled by a pair of arms. Bryce was near by, and there were other men by the engines, but the owner of those arms thought nothing of this.
"But if Sammy finishes the journey himself," she said, "his will be the glory." "Let him have it," replied Clewe. "If my method of arctic exploration solves the great problem of the pole, I shall be satisfied with the glory I get from the conception. The mere journey to the northern end of the earth's axis is of slight importance.
Consequently it was his opinion that if the pole should be discovered, the discoverers should take possession of it in the name of their country. Every one on board except Sarah Block, who had something to say about the old proverb concerning the counting of chickens before they are hatched thought this a good idea, and when the plan was submitted to Mr. Clewe and Mrs.
But Clewe did not now wish to make public the extraordinary adaptations of his discovery to the uses of the medical man and the surgeon.
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.
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