CHAPTER VII
_The Awakening_
He had no idea of how long he had been unconscious when, his fullsenses returning, he eagerly peered ahead through the torpoon'svision-plate. For some seconds he could see nothing; but he knew, atleast, that the torpoon had survived the shock, for he was dry andsnug in his harness. And then his eyes became accustomed to thedarkness, and he saw that he was outside the submarine. Sallorsen hadfollowed his orders; had opened the port-lock! The undersea reacheslay ahead of him, and the way was clear.
Ken stared into a gray, silent sea, no longer shadowed with movingbrown-skinned bodies. He tried his motors. Their friendly, rhythmichum answered him, and carefully he slipped into gear and crept up offthe sea-floor. He did not dare use his lights.
The _Peary_ was a great, blurred shadow, a dead thing without glow ormovement, with no figures of sealmen around her. As Ken's eyes gainedgreater vision, he was able to make out a wide, long rent runningclear across the top of the fourth compartment of the submarine. Theexplosion had done that to her, but what had it done to her crew? Whathad it done to the sealmen?
He saw the sealmen first. Some were quite close, but in the murk hehad missed them. Silent specters, they were apparently lifeless,strewn all around at different levels, and most of them floatingslowly up toward the dim ice ceiling.
But up under the ice was movement! Living figures were there! And atthe sight Kenneth Torrance's lips spread in their first real grin fordays. The plan had worked! The sealmen had been destroyed, and alreadysome of the _Peary's_ men were up there and fumbling clumsily acrossthe hundred feet which separated them from the hole in the ice thatwas the last step to the world above.
* * * * *
A ghostly gray haze of light filtered downward through the water fromthe hole. Ken counted twelve figures making their way to it. As hewondered about the rest of the crew, he saw three bulging, swayingshapes suddenly emerge from the split in the top of the _Peary_, andbegin an easy rise toward the ice ceiling ninety feet above. There wasno apparent danger, and they went up quite slowly, with occasionalbrief pauses to avoid the risk of the bends. Clasped together, thegroup of three were, and when they were halfway to the glassy ceilingof the ice, three more left the rent in the submarine and followedlikewise. Twelve men were at the top; six others were swimming up;three more were yet to leave the submarine--and after they hadabandoned her, he, Ken, would follow with the torpoon and the food itcontained.
So he thought, watching from where he lay, down below, and there wasin him a great weariness after the triumph so bitterly fought for hadbeen achieved. He rested through minutes of quiet and relaxation,watching what he had brought about; but only minutes--for suddenlywithout warning all security was gone.
From out the murky shadows to the left a sleek shape came flashingwith great speed, to jerk Ken Torrance's eyes around and to widen themwith quick alarm.
A sealman! A sealman alive, and moving--and vengeful! A sealman whichthe explosion of nitromite had not reached!
Doubtless the lone creature was surprised upon seeing all its fellowsmotionless, drifting like corpses upward, and the men of the _Peary_escaping. With graceful, beautiful speed, a liquid streak, it flashedinto the scene, eeling up and around and down, trying to understandwhat extraordinary thing had happened. But finally it slowed down andhovered some thirty feet directly above the dark hull of the _Peary_.
The men rising toward the ice had seen the sealman at the same timeKen Torrance had, and at once increased their efforts, fearingimmediate attack. Quickly the two groups shot to the top where theother twelve were, and began a desperate fumbling progress over towardthe hole that alone gave exit. But the sealman paid no attention tothem. It was looking at something below.
Ken saw what it was.
The last three men were leaving the _Peary_. Awkward, swaying objects,they rose up directly in front of the hovering creature.
* * * * *
With an enraged thrust of flippers, it drove at them. The threehumans--Sallorsen, Lawson and one other, Ken knew they must be--wereclasped together, and the long, lithe, muscular body smote themsquarely, sent them whirling and helpless in different directions inthe sea-gloom. One of them was driven down by the force of the blow,and that one the sealman chose to finish first. It lashed at him, itsstrong teeth bared to rip the sea-suit, concentrating on him all therage and all the thirst for vengeance it had.
But by then, down below, the torpoon's motors were throbbing at fullpower; the thin directional rudders were slanting; the torpoon wasturning and pointing its nose upward; and Ken Torrance, his face bleakas the Arctic ice, was grasping the trigger of the nitro-shell gun.
He might perhaps have saved the doomed man had he swept straight upthen and fired, but a quick mounting of the odds distracted him for afatal second. Out of the deeper gloom at the left came a swiftlygrowing shadow, and Ken, with a sinking in his stomach, knew it for asecond sealman.
Then another similar shadow brought his eyes to the right.
Two more sealmen! Three now--and how many more might come?
At once Ken knew what he must do before ever he fired a shell at oneof the brown-skinned shapes. The man just attacked had to besacrificed in the interests of the rest. The torpoon swerved, thrustup toward the ice ceiling under the full force of her motors; and whenhalfway to it, and her gun-containing bow was pointed at a spot in theice only twenty feet in front of the foremost of the men strokingdesperately towards the distant exit-hole, Ken pressed the trigger;and again, and again and again....
Twelve shells, quick, on the same path, bit into the ice. Almostimmediately came the first explosion. It was swelled by the others.The ice shivered and crumbled in jagged splinters--and then there wasa new column of light reaching down from the world of air and lifeinto the darkness of the undersea. A roughly circular hole gaped inthe ice sixty or seventy feet nearer the swimming men than the oldone.
"That'll give 'em a chance," muttered Kenneth Torrance. He plunged thetorpoon around and down. "And now for a fight!"
* * * * *
Without pause, now, there was, straight ahead, a hard, desperate duel,a fitting last fight for any torpoon or any man riding one. Each ofthe seven shells left in the nitro-gun's magazine had to count; andthe first of them gave a good example.
Ken turned down in time to see the death of the man first attacked.His suit was ripped clean across, his air of life went up in bubbles,and the water came in. The seal-creature lunged at its falling victima last time, and as it did so its smooth brown body crossed Ken'ssights. The torpooner fired, and saw his shell strike home, for thebody shuddered, convulsed, and the sealman, internally torn, wentsinking in a dark cloud after the human it had slain.
That sight gave pause to the other two creatures that had arrived, andgave Ken Torrance a good second chance. Motor throbbing, the torpoonturned like a thing alive. Its snout and gun-sights swerving straighttoward the next target. But, when just on the point of pressing thetrigger, Ken's torpoon was struck a terrific blow and tumbled over andover. The whole external scene blurred to him, and only after a momentwas he able to bring the torpoon back to an even keel.
He saw what had happened. While he had been sighting on the secondseal-creature, the third had attacked the torpoon from the rear bystriking it with all the strength of its heavy, muscular body. But itdid not follow up its attack. For it had crashed in to the whirlingpropeller, and now it was hanging well back, its head horribly gashedby the steel blades.
For a moment the three combatants hung still, both sealmen staring atthe torpoon as if in wonder that it could strike both with its bow andstern, and Ken Torrance rapidly glancing over the situation. Theremaining two of the last group of three men, he saw, had reached thetop, and the foremost of the _Peary's_ crew were within several feetof the new hole in the ice. In a very short time all would be out andsafe. Until then he had to hold off the two sealmen.
>
Two? There were no longer only two, but five--ten--a dozen--and more.The dead were coming to life!
Here and there in the various levels of drifting, motionless brownbodies that he thought the explosion had killed, one was stirring,awakening! The explosion had but stunned many or most of them, _andnow they were returning to consciousness_!
CHAPTER VIII
_The Duel_
Upon seeing this, all hope for life left Ken. He had only six shellsleft, and at best he could kill only six sealmen. Already, there weremore than twenty about him, completely encircling the torpoon. Theyseemed afraid of it, and yet desirous of finishing it--they hung back,watching warily the thing that could strike and hurt from either end;but Ken knew, of course, that he could not count on their inactionlong. One concerted charge would mean his quick end, and the death ofmost of the men above.
Well, there was only one thing to do--try to hold them off until thosemen above had climbed out, every one.
With this plan in mind, he maneuvered for a commanding position.Quietly he slid his motor into gear, and slowly the torpoon rose. Atthis first movement, the wall of hesitating brown bodies broke back alittle. It quickly pressed in again, however, as the torpoon came to ahalt where Ken wanted it--a position thirty feet beneath, and slightlyto one side, of the escaping men above, with an angle of firecommanding the area the sealmen would have to cross to attack them.
Almost at once came action. One of the surrounding creatures swervedsuddenly up toward the men. Instinctively angling the torp, Ken sent anitro-shell at it; and the chance aim was good. The projectile caughtthe sealman squarely, and, after the convulsion, it began to driftdownward, its body torn apart.
"That'll teach you, damn you!" Ken muttered savagely, and, to heightenthe effect he had created, he brought his sights to bear on anothersealman in the circle around him--and fired and killed.
This sight of sudden death told on the others. They grew obviouslymore fearful and gave back, though still forming a solid circle aroundthe torpoon. The circle was ever thickening and deepening downward asmore of those that the explosion had rendered unconscious returned tolife.
And then, above, the first man reached the hole, clawed at its roughedges and levered himself through.
That was a signal. From somewhere beneath, two brown bodies flashedupward in attack. Fearing a general rush at any second, Ken firedtwice swiftly. One shell missed, but the other slid to its mark.Almost alongside its fellow, one of the creatures was shattered andtorn, and that evidently altered the other's intentions, for itabandoned the attack and sought safety in the mass of its fellows onthe farther side.
Another respite. Another man through the hole. And but twonitro-shells left!
* * * * *
The deadly circle, like wolves around a lone trapper who crouchesclose to his dying fire, pressed in a little; and by their ominousquietness, by the sight of their eyes all turned in on him, theirconcerted inching closer, Ken sensed the nearness of the charge thatwould finish him. All this in deep silence, there in the gloomyquarter-light. He could not yell and brandish his fists at them as thetrapper by the fire might have done to win a few extra minutes. Theonly cards he had to play were two shells--and one was needed now!
He fired it with deliberate, sure aim, and grunted as he saw itsvictim convulse and die, with dark blood streaming. Again the swarmhesitated.
Ken risked a glance above. Only three men left, he saw; and one waspulled through the hole as he watched. Below, in one place, severalseal-creatures surged upward.
"Get back, damn you!" he cursed harshly. "All right--take it! That'sthe last!"
And the last shell hissed out from the gun even as the last man,above, was pulled through up into the air and safety.
Ken felt that he had given half his life with that final shell.Completely surrounded by a hundred or more of the sealmen, he couldnot possibly hope to maneuver the torpoon up to the hole in the iceand leave it, without being overwhelmed. He had held off the swarmlong enough for the others to escape, but for himself it was the end.
So he thought, and wondered just when that end would come. Soon, heknew. It would not take them long to overcome their fear when they sawthat he no longer reached out and struck them down in sudden bloodydeath. Now it was their turn.
"Anyway," the torpooner murmured, "I got 'em out. I saved them."
But had he? Suddenly his mind turned up a dreadful thought. He hadsaved them from the sealmen, but they were up on the ice without food.There had been no time to apportion rations in the submarine; all thesupplies were stacked around him in the torpoon!
Searching planes would eventually appear overhead, but if he could notget the food up to the men it meant their death as surely as if theyhad stayed locked in the _Peary_!
But how could he do it without shells, and with that living walledging inch by inch upon him, visibly on the brink of rushing him.Some carried ropes with which they would lash the torpoon down as theyhad the others. Must all he and those men had gone through, be invain? Must he die--and the others? For certainly without food, thosemen above on the lonely ice fields, all of them weakened by the longsiege in the submarine, would perish quickly....
And then a faintly possible plan came to him. It involved an attemptto bluff the seal-creatures.
* * * * *
Thirty feet above the lone man in the torpoon was the hole he hadblasted in the ice. He knew that from the cone of light which filtereddown; he did not dare to take his eyes for a second from the creaturesaround him, for all now depended on his judging to a fraction justwhen the lithe, living wall would leap to overwhelm him.
Now the torpoon was enclosed by what was more a sphere of brown bodiesthan a circle. But it was not a solid sphere. It stretched thinly towithin a few feet of the ice ceiling where, in one place, was the holeKen had blown in the ice.
He began to play the game. He edged the gears into reverse, gentlyangled the diving-planes, and slowly the torpoon tilted in responseand began to sink back to the dark sea-floor.
Motion appeared in the curved facade of sleek brown heads and bodiesin front and to the sides. The creatures behind and below, Ken couldnot see; he could only trust to the fear inspired by the damage hispropeller had wreaked on one of them, to hold them back. However, hecould judge the movements of those behind and below by thesynchronized movements of those in front; for the sealmen, in thistense siege, seemed to move as one--just as they would move as onewhen a leader got the courage to charge across the gap to the torpoon.
In reverse, slowly, the torpoon backed downward. Every minute seemed aseparate eternity of time, for Ken dared not move fast at thisjuncture, and he needed to retreat not less than fifty feet.
Fifty feet! Would they hold off long enough for him to make it?
Foot by foot the torpoon edged down at her forty-five-degree angle,and with every foot the watching bodies became visibly bolder. Therewas no light inside the torpoon--inner light would decrease thevisibility outside--but Ken knew her controls as does the musician hisinstrument. Slowly the propeller whirled over, the torpoon dropped,slowly the diffused light from the hole above diminished--and slowlythe eager wall of sealmen followed and crept in.
Twenty-five feet down; and then, after a long time, thirty-five feet,and forty. Seventy feet up, in all, to the hole in the ice....
Ken wanted seventy-five feet, but he could not have it. For the wallof sleek bodies broke. One or two of the creatures surged forward;other followed; they were coming!
The slim torpoon leaped under the unleashed power of hermotors--forward.
* * * * *
For one awful moment Ken thought he was finished. The vision of thehole was obscured by a twisting, whirling maelstrom of bodies, and thetorpoon quivered and shook like a living thing in agony under glancingblows.
But then came a patch of light, a pathway of light, leading straightup at a forty-five-degree angle
to the hole in the ice above.
Sealmen and torpoon had leaped forward at the same moment. Doubtlessthe creatures had not expected the shell to move so suddenly anddecisively ahead, so that when it did, those in the van swerved toescape head-on contact.
The torpoon gained speed all too slowly for her pilot. It naturallytook time to gain full forward speed from a standing start. But shemoved, and she moved fast, and after her poured the full tide ofsealmen, now that they saw their prey running in retreat.
From somewhere ahead appeared a rope, noosed to catch the fleeingprey. It slipped off the side. Another touched the bow, but it too wasthrown off. The torpoon's forward momentum was now great; she wassweeping up at the full speed Ken had gone back to be able to attain.He needed full speed! The plan would fail at the last moment withoutit!
Another rope; but it was the seal-creature's last gesture. Through theside plates of quarsteel the light grew fast; the ice was only tenfeet away; a slight directional correction brought the hole deadahead--and at full speed, twenty-four miles an hour, the torpoonpassed through and into the thin air of the world of light and life.
Right out of the hole, a desperate fugitive from below, she leaped,her propeller suddenly screaming, and arched high through the airbefore she dove with a rending, splintering crash onto the upper sideof the sheet ice.
And the sun of a cloudless, perfect Arctic day beat down on her; andmen were all around, eagerly reaching to open her entrance port. Itwas done.
* * * * *
Kenneth Torrance, dazed, battered, hurting in every joint butconscious, found the torpoon's port open, and felt hands reach in andclasp him. Wearily he helped them lift him out into the thin sunlight.Sitting down, slitting his eyes against the sudden glare, he peeredaround.
Captain Sallorsen was beside him, supporting him with one hand andpounding him on the back with the other; and there in front was thebearded scientist, Lawson, and the rest of the men.
Ken took a great gulp of the clean, cold air.
"Gosh!" was all he could say. "Gosh, that tastes good!"
"Man, you did it!" shouted Sallorsen. "How, in God's name, I don'tknow--but you did it!"
"He did!" said Lawson. "And he did it all himself. Even to the food,which should keep us till a plane comes by. If they haven't stoppedsearching for us."
His words reminded Ken of something.
"Oh, there'll be a plane over," he said. "Forgot to tell you, but Istole this torpoon--see?--and told the fellows they could come and getit somewhere right around here."
Kenneth Torrance grinned, and glanced down at the battered steel shellwhich had borne him out of the water below.
"And here it is," he finished. "A little damaged--but then I didn'tpromise it would be as good as new!"
* * * * *
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