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In a week Mr. Gibbs would have finished his charts, his meteorological, his geological, and geographical reports, and a clear, succinct account of the expedition, written by Clewe himself from the statements of the party, would be ready for publication; and in the brilliantly lighted sky of discovery which now rested, one edge upon Sardis and the other upon the pole, there was but one single cloud, and this was Rovinski.
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.
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.
Every day he made a report to Roland Clewe about Rovinski, but Clewe's instructions were that so long as the Pole behaved himself properly there was no reason to trouble the minds of the party on board with fears of rascality on his part. They had enough to occupy their minds without any disturbing influence of that sort.
Marcy, the Assistant Engineer, an active, energetic fellow, filled with ambition and love of adventure, and one of the most hopeful and cheerful persons on board. He had never heard of Rovinski, and did not know that there was anybody in the world who was trying to benefit himself by fraudulent knowledge of Mr. Clewe's discoveries and inventions, but he hated the Pole on his own account.
Marcy rushed towards Rovinski, taking a course diagonal to that of the latter, and, striking him with tremendous force just before he reached the ring, he threw him against the rail with such violence that the momentum given to his head and body carried them completely over it, and his legs following, the man went headlong into the sea. Instantly there was a shout of horror.
This fellow must have been that Pole, Rovinski. I met him in Europe, and I think he came over here not long before I did." "That's the man, sir," said Samuel. "I turned a needle searchlight on him just as he was givin' up the business, and I have got a little photograph of him at the house. His face is mostly beard, but you'll know him." "What became of him?" asked Clewe.
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.
The more he thought of his own descent into that great cleft, the more he thought of the horrible danger of sliding down some invisible declivity to awful, unknown regions; the more he thought of the mysterious death of Rovinski, the more firmly did he determine that not by his agency should a human being descend again to those mysterious depths.
So great was the anxiety to get the car to the surface of the earth that the engine which raised it was run at as high a speed as was deemed safe, and in a little more than an hour the car came out of the mouth of the shaft, and in it sat Ivan Rovinski, motionless and dead.
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