When Stirling awoke it seemed to him that he had passed through an ocean
of dreams. He rolled over and blinked through leaden eyes at the
porthole. Dawn was breaking across a wild waste of Northern waters; ice
floes and ancient packs floated by; seals sported; whale slick showed in
oily patches, and the sun glanced over the smooth surface of the sea. A
ripple showed where the _Pole Star's_ sharp stem was cleaving the
surface.
Stirling rubbed his eyes and listened. The steady clank of the engines
and the vibration of the tail shaft beneath him still continued. He
glanced upward. The tiny, telltale compass overhead was pointing west.
The ship was headed for the true pole!
"Madmen!" said Stirling, springing out of the bunk.
He emerged into the larger cabin to find that Helen Marr had vanished.
The rifle lay across the table, and her knitted tam-o'-shanter was
hanging from one corner of the piano; the deck light had been thrown
open, and the companionway was unbarred.
Stirling strode through the curtain and tested the door which led to the
sailor's cabin. It was locked. A bitter protest in Frisco slang greeted
his query. He hesitated. The girl had eluded him in some manner. She had
gone on deck.
He crossed the alleyway, cocked the rifle, and burst into the larger
cabin. Up the steps which led to the companion he climbed with savage
strength, and the light of dawning day and the gust of salty air which
filled his lungs cleared his brain. He stared about the quarter-deck,
then dropped the rifle's butt down upon his boot.
The girl, bareheaded and with ribbons flying, was sitting in a deck
chair; near by were the Russian leader and two other revolutionists.
They turned as she laughed buoyantly, but the leader frowned and reached
for his pocket. Stirling raised the rifle and swung it under his arm.
"Good morning, Mr. Stirling," called the girl. "Come aft with me. These
poor men are not our enemies. They're lost and want a pilot."
Stirling lowered the muzzle of the rifle, but still eyed the leader, and
his lips grew hard and level with suspicion. He raised his shoulders
slightly.
The girl saw the motion and sprang out of the deck chair with a cry.
"They're only big boys!" she exclaimed. "I was playing the piano and
singing--while you were sleeping. One song they liked, and the leader
knocked on the glass and called to me. There were tears in his eyes.
He's escaped from Siberia and wants to get to America. They all have
escaped, Mr. Stirling. They wouldn't harm anybody!"
Stirling remembered the carnage when the revolutionists took the ship.
But perhaps they had thought that the _Pole Star's_ crew would resist
and therefore had anticipated an expected attack. And they seemed to
have treated the girl with the attention due a princess. A cushion was
at the foot of the deck chair; tea steamed in a kettle; crackers had
been brought from the galley.
"I think you had better go below," said Stirling glancing at the girl's
upturned face.
"Speak to them; they don't mean us any harm."
Stirling turned toward the leader, and the small eyes before him
lightened where they had been filled with fear. A gross, hairy hand
swept forward expressively.
"You don't know where you are?" asked Stirling, gesturing.
The man, apparently getting the sense of the Ice Pilot's question, shook
his head.
"Do you want to go back?" Stirling pointed the rifle toward the jack
staff and the stern of the ship.
The leader repeated his nod, then spoke to the two others, who, Stirling
decided, also held office among the revolutionists. They lumbered to the
rail and stared forward, raising their arms and pointing.
Stirling shaded his eyes from the rays of the sun which was swinging on
a long slant over the sea, and saw ahead, and to starboard, the glint of
horizon-down ice. He knew the reason--they were within thirty miles of
Banks Land.
The sea was open to the magnetic west, where a hard line rimmed the
surface. Gulls flew overhead, and the smoke of the furnaces blotted
across the waters. The entire scene was one of desperate enterprise.
They were steaming on an unknown ocean of danger and doubt, where no
explorers had been able to penetrate. Only an open season, such as
Stirling had never known before, permitted the _Pole Star's_ progress.
With a mastering glance, he turned toward the leader, his head back, the
cords of his neck showing like roots of some giant oak. Helen Marr
seized his left hand and crept close up to him.
"I'll pilot this ship!" he said.
"Where?" asked Helen Marr.
"Through the Northeast Passage!"