TO THE TREASURE CITY
Once all the members of the submarine party were reunited, their one
thought was to repair their damaged craft as soon as possible and start
again on their way to the Pole. Perhaps the engineer wasted a thought now
and again on the supposed great mineral wealth of that peninsula, but if
he did, he said nothing.
The men were divided into three groups. The first, the mechanics,
undertook the task of removing the shaft; the second guarded the craft
against possible attack by the natives, while the third was dispatched up
the beach to search for firewood which the mechanics must have.
The work of the guard seemed a joke. Not one of the natives could be
induced to approach the dark "spirit-whale" which some of their comrades
had seen rise from the water. Even after the steel shaft had been
brought ashore as tangible evidence that the craft was a thing of metal,
they could not be induced to approach it.
The wood hunters found their task a hard one, for, either there never had
been much driftwood on these shores, or the natives had used it for
summer camp-fires. They searched far down the bay without finding a
sufficient quantity to make "a decent fire over which to roast
'hot-dogs'," as Rainey expressed it.
But as the engineer rounded a point, he suddenly exclaimed;
"There! Ain't h'I been sayin' hit! I 'ates to think 'ow jolly stupit
som'ums of ye are."
He was pointing to the banks which overhung the sea. The men, who were
looking only for driftwood, did not at first see the cause of his
exclamation.
"Coal, my lads!" Jarvis exclaimed, half beside himself. "Coal cropping
from the bank!"
It was true. A careful examination showed a four-foot vein of soft coal.
It was not long until reindeer sleds, secured from the natives, were
drawing quantities of the fuel to a point beneath a cliff, where a crude
forge had been made out of granite rock.
While this work was going on, the engineer disappeared in the
direction of the village. In a half-hour he came tearing back, his
face red with rage.
"They're h'out!" he sputtered. "The bally, blithering unnatural 'eathen
hev flew the h'ivory coops. T'was to be expected. I 'ates t' think what
h'I'd a-done, 'ad h'I 'ad the say of it."
"Oh, well," said the Doctor, who was inclined to take Jarvis' quarrel
with the natives rather lightly, "in twenty-four hours we'll be away from
these shores never to return."
"Return?" exclaimed Jarvis. "H'I'll return, an' Dave 'ere'll return.
We'll be rich men, we'll be. I 'ates t' think 'ow rich 'im an' me'll be!"
But the Doctor was too busy hurrying the mechanics in their repairs to
heed the words of the excited engineer.
Finally the forge was ready and as by the Arctic moonlight a black smoke
rose higher and higher above the cliffs, and a fire blazed a thousand
times larger and hotter than that black shore had ever known, the natives
appeared to grow more and more certain that these men who came up from
the depths of the sea were, indeed, the spirits of all the dead whales
that they and their forefathers before them had killed. They looked on in
silent awe.
It was with the greatest difficulty that Jarvis succeeded in finding one
of them who was able to speak the Chukche language of Behring Strait, a
language that was understood by Azazruk, the Eskimo. When, at last, he
did find a man who knew Chukche and who was not too frightened to talk,
he plied him with many questions.
"Who were the three strange-appearing natives who had attacked him and
his companion in the jail? Where did they come from? What were they doing
here? How did they happen to have such a strange jail? How did they
chance to have a jail at all? Where did the gold come from that had been
used to inlay the ivory? Was there much of it to be found?"
These, and many other questions, the engineer put to the trembling
native, while, with one eye, he watched the operations of the mechanics
who labored by the fire.
The man did not know the exact place from which the three strangers had
come; it was somewhere far South, known as Ki-yek-tuk. The three had been
a long time in the village and had inspired all the people with a great
dread by telling them of a giant race who wore fierce beards like the
walrus; who killed with a great noise at long distances, and who would
break any jail except one of ivory. They had said that probably one or
two of these fierce men would come at first, and, perhaps, if these were
made prisoners, no others would follow. Hence the jail. And hence, too,
the imprisonment of Dave and Jarvis. The natives had felt sure that they
were the advance guard of these wicked, cruel men who had come to rob and
kill. But now, of course, they knew they were spirits of dead whales,
and would do them no harm.
As for the tusks with the inlaid gold, the man said they had been traded
for by a very old man who had made a journey with a reindeer, ten nights
and days from their village, due west. There, beside a great river, he
had found a numerous people, who lived in houses of logs, very large and
warm. He said, too, that these people had great quantities of this yellow
metal. Their houses were decorated with it; their fur garments glistened
with it; their council house was encrusted with it.
"But," he added at the end, "the metal was too soft for spear points and
arrowheads, too heavy for garments, and not good for food. As for houses,
did they not have their deerskins and walrus-pelts? So the old man never
went back for more."
Dave had been sitting by the old engineer as he secured this information
bit by bit through the interpreter. His eyes sparkled with excitement
when he spoke.
"Well," he asked, when the native had finished, "what do you make of
it?"
"Make of it?" exclaimed the old man. "It's plain as the nose on your
face. H'as h'I see it, there's gold in this land just h'as h'I said
before, plenty of it. H'and this 'ere tribe, way west there some'ers;
they's been driven there by the Roosians, er by other tribes. Mayhaps
they's Roosian h'exiles themselves. Mayhaps they's one of the seven lost
tribes of h'Israel, what you read of in the Book. 'Owever that may be,
it's there, and h'I 'ates to think 'ow rich you h'and h'I'd be h'if h'it
wasn't fer this 'ere crazy Doctor's achin' to see th' Pole."
"Jarvis," Dave leaned forward eagerly, "we'll take the Doctor to the
Pole, then we'll hire a submarine or a schooner and work our way
back here."
"We will that, me lad," said the old man, gripping the boy's hand. "But
then," he added more soberly, "maybe it won't be a bit o' use. Maybe the
Japs will get it first."
"The Japs."
"Sure! The Japs. Ar' ye that blind? Don't ye know all the time the three
rascals we well-nigh killed was Japs? Can't ye see 'ow they don't want
the h'Americans or th' Roosians to git t' the treasure of this peninsula?
Can't ye see 'ow bloomin' easy h'it'd be for 'em to put two or three
spies in h'every bloomin' native village on the whole Roosian coast, and
take the entire peninsula fer th' Jap Kaiser, or whatever they call 'im?
Can't ye see 'ow th' thing'd work?"
Dave sat a long time in thought. At last he decided what to do.
"Perhaps you're right, Jarvis," he said finally, rising. "But our first
job is the Pole. The shaft must be nearly fitted by now. Let's see how
they're coming. Perhaps we'll be away in the morning."
As they rounded a block of ice by the shore, Jarvis gave a start and
seized his companion by the arm.
"D'y' see 'im?" he whispered "'E was starin' h'at us from behint them
ice-piles. 'E was a Jap. I'll swear it."
"Aw, you're seeing Japs to-night," laughed Dave.
"Ow is she?" Jarvis asked of a gob whom they met.
"Right as they make 'em--now. But I'll say it was some job that. The
shaft was twisted something awful--like a corkscrew. But it was some
steel, that shaft, and we just het her up an' twisted her straight again.
The Doc said he guessed it would be a bit short, but when we got her back
in place she fitted like paint. Then we slid the old boat back in the
water and tried her out and she runs like a watch."
"Grand. We're off in the mornin'."
Dave and Jarvis turned to make their way to the submarine where a single
gob, pacing the white ice-surface, had laughed at his job of watching
natives who could not be induced to come within a half-mile of him.
Suddenly the engineer jumped forward.
"Did y' see that?" Jarvis grabbed Dave by the arm and urged him into a
run. "'E went down--the guard, I saw 'im," panted Jarvis. "I saw 'im,
then h'I didn't. H'it's the Japs. Listen!"
There came distinctly the sound of a dragging hawser.
"H'it's the Japs; the blooming bloody 'eathen," Jarvis panted. "They're
h'after the submarine!"
Dave dragged him behind an ice-covered boulder.
"Quick!" he whispered. "If the submarine goes, we go with her, inside or
outside, somewhere. We've got to take the chance."
Darting from ice-pile to ice-pile, they soon reached the water's edge.
There lay the guard, unconscious, an ugly bruise on the side of his head.
And there lay the submarine, silent and closed.
"She's off!" breathed the engineer.
It was true. The craft already showed a line of dark water between her
and the shore.
Without hesitation, the old engineer sprang upon her deck and crouched by
the conning-tower. Instantly Dave followed him. Their soft skin-boots
made no sound. And, as they crouched there, the submarine headed for the
channel and then toward the west.
"To the treasure city, h'I'll be bound," whispered Jarvis.