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The Dipsey had sailed around the whole boundary of the polar sea; observations, surveys, and maps had been made, and the general geography of the region had been fairly well determined. There still remained some weeks of the arctic day, and it was desirable that they should begin their return journey during that time; so Mr.
The Dipsey had risen to the surface some twenty miles from the Cape and now came bravely on, Captain Hubbell on deck, his silver buttons shining in the sun.
Still, as he wanted very much to go to the pole if it was possible that he could get there, and as the wages offered him were exceedingly liberal, Captain Jim enlisted, in the party. His duties were to begin when the Dipsey floated on the surface of the sea like a commonsense craft.
The little thermometer-boat which during the submarine voyage of the Dipsey had constantly preceded her to give warning of the sunken base of some great iceberg, was now drawn in close to the bow; there was so much ice so near that its warnings were constant, and therefore unneeded.
Raleigh felt any fears as to the success of the first part of the return journey, they showed no signs of them, and Sammy never made any reference to his wife's frequently expressed opinion that there was good reason to believe that the end of this thing would be that the Dipsey, with everybody on board of her, would suddenly, by one of those mishaps which nobody can prevent, be blown into fine dust.
He was not at all anxious now to tell Margaret what he was thinking of in connection with the track of the shell. The most impatient person on board the Dipsey was Captain Jim Hubbell.
"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.
The bottom was rising again, and the Dipsey was obliged to sail nearer and nearer to the ice above. Between two dangers, constricted and trammelled as they were, none of them could help feeling the terrors of their position, and if it had not been for the encouraging messages which continually came to them from Sardis, they might not have been able to keep up brave hearts.
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.
Of course it might have been some promontory of the rocks under the sea against which their telltale lead had struck; but there was an instrument on board for taking soundings by means of a lead suspended outside and a wire running through a water-proof hole in the bottom of the vessel, and when the Dipsey had risen a few fathoms, and was progressing very slowly, this instrument was used at frequent intervals, and it was found that the electric lead had not touched a rock projecting upward, and that the bottom was almost level.
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