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Meanwhile, although the sounds of conflict and confusion aboard the Everest still floated to the pair, horribly suggesting the awful scenes that were being enacted on her deck, the ship herself had settled so deeply in the water that only the lights in the cabins of the promenade deck and the clusters illuminating the boat deck now marked her whereabouts, and it soon became apparent that the end was very near.
"Five years ago the President sent for me," explained the Chief Engineer, "and asked if I could plan an observatory on Mount Everest. I replied that I would try to do so if the Government saw fit to place me in charge of the undertaking.
Versal," said the captain, "you remember that you promised me that I should drop my anchor on the head of Mount Everest if I worked a traverse across Beluchistan." "Certainly I remember it; and also that you were not much disposed to undertake the task. However, you did it well, and I suppose that now you want me to fulfill the bargain?" "Exactly," replied the captain.
The professor, meanwhile, had devoted himself enthusiastically to the forming of a collection of rare birds, beetles, and butterflies, in which pursuit he had been fully as successful as his companions in theirs; so that when the time came for them to leave this delightful spot they did so in the highest possible state of health and spirits; the remembrance of their ugly adventure on Everest disturbing them no more than would the memory of a troublesome dream.
And the officers of the Everest knew this; therefore they devoted the whole of their energies to the task of reassuring that great crowd of men who now filled the boat deck of the sinking ship, arguing, pleading, and even threatening, while the Dagos crowded around them ever more menacingly, with eyes ablaze with mingled terror and ferocity, lips contracted into savage snarls, and hands in many cases gripping long, ugly-looking, dagger-like knives.
"Respectable! Why it's an enormous altitude, my dear friend, if you compare it with the Moon's diameter. The Earth's diameter being more than 3-1/2 times greater than the Moon's, if the Earth's mountains bore the same ratio to those of the Moon, Everest should be more than sixteen miles high, whereas it is not quite six."
"Miss Bewery has just told me what her brother told her. What of it?" "I have just come from the police-station," said Bryce. "Coates and Everest have carried out an autopsy this afternoon. Mitchington told me the result." "Well?" demanded Ransford, with no attempt to conceal his impatience. "And what then?"
If I were only certain that those rumours about what Collishaw hinted he could say had got to Ransford's ears! why, then " "What's being done about that post-mortem?" asked Bryce. "Dr. Coates and Dr. Everest are going to do it this afternoon," replied Mitchington. "The Coroner went to them at once, as soon as I told him." "They'll probably have to call in an expert from London," said Bryce.
You've been around long enough to know heroes are made, not born. We stopped having much regard for real heroes a long time ago. Lindbergh and Byrd were a couple of the last we turned out. After that, we left it to the Norwegians to do such things as crew the Kon-Tiki, or to the English to top Everest whether or not the Britisher made the last hundred feet slung over the shoulder of a Sherpa.
Taking a pencil, parallel ruler and pair of dividers in his hand, Captain Prowse proceeded carefully to jot down the position of the Bolivia, as indicated by her message; having done which he gave vent to a sigh of relief; for he saw that the course which he was pursuing would take the Everest some sixty miles to the north of that point. "Thank God! that's all right," he murmured.
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