CHAPTER XXI
KILLERS OF THE ARCTIC
"Help! Scotty! Killer whales!" screamed Lee, plunging forward, strivingto pull pallet, sick man and all back from the edge of the ice.
At Lee's shout, the sea monster slid back into the depths. But not forlong! There came a swish, a puff. Out of the water was thrust again thehuge black snout, in which were set two wicked little eyes.
Other black snouts were thrust above water. Ten, maybe twenty killersrolled surfacewards and spouted.
Scotty was beside young Renaud now, helping him drag the sick man backand back from the water's edge. Their hearts throbbed painfully. It hadbeen a close call. Another instant and the sea killer would havesnatched off the helpless victim and sunk to the chill, dark depths togorge itself on a meal of human meat.
"Hi, ya! Sea wolves! Tigers of the sea!" Such were the epithets Scottyhurled forth as he shook his fist at the sinister black crew that keptrising at the ice edge, sinking, rising again to glare with ravenous,evil eyes at meat that had moved out of reach.
Many times before this, Scotty had seen service in the Arctic waters,and knew well enough about the killer whales. Like the wolf-pack of thesnow barrens, these ferocious sea creatures hunted in bands. The manshuddered now when he remembered what he had seen of the killers on thetrail. Sometimes these carnivori swallowed dolphins alive without eventaking trouble to kill them. Sometimes the killer-pack attacked a hugebowhead whale, beat him into submission with leapings and poundings oftheir lithe, cruel black bodies, devoured him ferociously, first thelips, then the tongue, then the rest of the monstrous, helpless body.
Anxiously the marooned men watched the horizon for thunderhead and stormcloud. Suppose a tempest rolled up, drove their ice field hither and yonon the sea, smashed and ground it to pieces? It would mean a terribleend, with the killer-pack of the sea nosing in, ready to devour.
It was hard to set the thoughts on anything else save the sinister seashapes that slunk away mysteriously for long stretches, then rolled backinto view, to glide and blow and watch with evil, hungry eyes.
Somehow, though, Lee forced his mind and his hands to concentrate on thescattered debris of his broken radio. For hours he labored, repairingthe condenser, straightening springs, connecting wires. "F-O-Y-N"--thatone call had gone out on the air from his machine. Had anyone heard it?Would he ever be able to send another?
An hour, eight hours, for days, the struggle went on. A black-haired boyout on the bleak white of drift ice striving to rehabilitate a deadradio! No tools, no resources, no anything save some broken wires andmetal pieces--and the eternal ice!
A wire bent here, a patient bit of soldering there--then all of a suddenhe was in touch! He had done it, made the connection, fired again thespark of electricity that was the life of radio!
Something was coming in! A chitter-chatter of faint telegraphic code!
"Latitude 78--on the ice--drifting--"
That was all.
No matter how Renaud sent out an answering call, begged, pleaded, tappedout the code, nothing more came in.
By the buzz from the wire circuit of his direction-finder, the call hadcome from the north. From the dirigible--it could be from no other!
For a brief second these two widely separated sections of the ill-fatedexpedition had been in touch. Then something had broken the connection.Atmospheric condition--disaster--storm, who could tell what? Neveranother sound came from the north.
Renaud and his companions comforted themselves with the belief thattheir shipmates aboard the dirigible had survived thus far.
Except for the briefest periods off for rest and food, and to race upand down the ice sheet to stir circulation against the treacherous creepof the bitter cold, Lee Renaud hung feverishly over his radio. It wastheir one hope, their one connecting link to anything beyond this frozenhell.
Two more days dragged by their torturous lengths, and except for its ownlittle lonely click, the drift-ice radio brought no other sound. Itseemed insane to continue to place hope on this pile of junk. It hadreached a little way into some near region--once--and that was all.
Scotty began to plan how they could strike out over the ice on foot,move on somewhere, anywhere, in hope of getting nearer to land. Thisinaction was terrible. But there was Van Granger to be thought of, sickand nearly helpless.
Sensing a discussion that he could not hear, Van Granger began begginghis companions to kill him, to put him out of his misery. He wanted tobe no drag, holding other men from their chance to make a dash for life.Without the burden of him, they could carry food--for a greaterdistance. After that, Lee and Scotty always kept their weapons withthem, or hidden out on the ice. Words of comfort and assurance seemed tomake no impression on the sick mind of their injured companion. Theyfeared that he would do himself some bodily injury.
In the midst of black hopelessness, Lee aimlessly tinkered at the radiooutfit. He shunted wires here and there, set a tube connectionhigher--and with a sudden crackle of spark, code began sliding in!
"V-I-A-T-K-A," Lee, counting code with one hand, scratched themysterious letters on the snow beside him. Exhilaration shot throughhim. He was in touch with something--but what, where?
"Viatka--Viatka!"
There it came again and other letters in a strange jumble that he couldnot seem to unravel. The direction-finder indicated south, east.
Frantically Lee poured his own code on the air. He got nothing more,made no other connection, could only content himself with the fact thathis radio was reaching somewhere beside the floes of Arctic.
What Lee did not know was that, days ago, his first brief call,"F-O-Y-N," had been picked up by a young Russian amateur wirelessoperator by the name of Arloff, living in a village in the Government ofViatka. Just the faint, far signal of four mysterious letters! This callout of the ether intrigued Arloff. He wired it on to Moscow, from whenceit was spread throughout the world.
Men began putting two and two together.
Foyn--an island at the gateway to the North Pole!
The dirigible Nardak lost above northern America after a great stormwhich had rolled down thence--for days all radio communication cut offfrom the Nardak, and no more word from her. And now this mysteriouscall, "F-O-Y-N." Did that call hold the answer to the dark riddle of thelost ship?
The mental eye of the world focused upon that bit of frozen land in thepolar ocean.
Though he knew nothing of this, though some atmospheric disturbance ofthe air ceiling interfered with his receiving, Lee Renaud continued todoggedly tap out his radio call of location--needs--a cry for help. InSiberia, Alaska, Canada, stations keyed by that mysterious "F-O-Y-N"checked in his message, tried to check their answering call across thefrozen wastes--but some Arctic interference barred the sound.
Then came some sudden change in atmospheric conditions, storm-chargedstratum of interference lifted, sound went through.
It was from the lofty wireless towers at Fort Churchill, an outpost ofcivilization on Hudson Bay, that an operator got the "touch" through toRenaud.
"Putting through to F-O-Y-N--clear the air, all else--courage to themarooned--help coming--the planes and ice-breakers of five nations tothe rescue!"
"Rescue! Rescue!" shouted Lee Renaud, then his fingers fell to tappingagain.
"Stand by--the Arctic on the air--F-O-Y-N heard the message--we live--"Lee Renaud slid to his knees, a prayer of thankfulness in his heart,then fainted dead away in the snow.