CAUGHT IN A TRAP.
"Someone in there?" Frank echoed the exclamation in amazed tones.
"Y-y-yes," stammered the scared professor, "he's sitting at a table."
"It must be one of the long dead Vikings," said Frank, after a
moment's thought, "in these frozen regions and incased in ice as the
ship has been, I suppose that a human body could be kept in perfect
preservation indefinitely."
"I reckon that's it," exclaimed the professor, much relieved at this
explanation, "but, boys, it gave me a dreadful start. He was looking
right at me and I thought I saw his head move. Perhaps it was Olaf
himself."
"Nonsense," said Frank sharply, who, now that the door was actually
open, had lost his queer feeling of scare; "come on, let's explore the
cabin. That poor dead Viking can't hurt us."
Followed by the others he entered the dark, mouldy cabin and could
himself hardly repress a start as he found himself facing a man who
must have been of gigantic stature. The dead sea rover was seated at a
rough oak table with his head resting on his hand as if in deep
thought. He had a mighty yellow beard reaching almost to his waist and
wore a loose garment of some rough material. Had it not been for a
green-mold on his features he must have seemed a living man.
The cabin contained some rude couches and rough bunks of dark wood
lined its sides, but otherwise, with the exception of the table and
chairs, it was bare of furniture. Some curious looking weapons,
including several shields and battle axes, were littered about the
place and some quaint instruments of navigation which Frank guessed
were crude foreshadows of the sextent and the patent log, lay on a
shelf.
"How do you suppose he died?" asked Billy in an awed whisper,
indicating the dead man.
"I don't know--frozen to death perhaps," was Frank's reply.
"But where are the others? The crew,--his companions?"
"Perhaps they rowed away; perhaps they went out to seek for food and
never came back--we can't tell and never shall be able to," was the
rejoinder.
The bare, dark cabin was soon explored and the boys, marveling a good
deal at the temerity of the old-time sailors who made their way across
unknown seas in such frail ships, emerged into the air once more. They
determined to throw off in work the gloomy feelings that had oppressed
them in the moldering cabin of the Viking ship.
"The first thing to do," announced Frank, "is to get all we can of
this stuff to the surface." He indicated the hold.
With this end in view a block and tackle was rigged on the surface of
the plateau, and the ivory and gold hauled out as fast as the boys
could load it. The professor at the top attended to the hauling and
dumping of each load. Soon a good pile of the valuable stuff lay
beside him and he hailed the boys and suggested that it was time for a
rest.
Nothing loath to knock off their fatiguing task for a while, the boys
clambered up to the surface by the rope and soon were busy eating the
lunch they had brought with them. They washed it down with smoking hot
chocolate which they had poured into their vacuum bottles at breakfast
time. The hot stuff was grateful and invigorating in the chill air,
and they ate and drank with keen appetites.
So excited were they by the events of the morning, and so much was
there to talk about, that the big dirigible had entirely slipped from
their minds till they suddenly were jolted into abrupt recollection by
a happening that brought them all to their feet with a shout of alarm.
FROM HIGH IN THE AIR A VOICE HAD HAILED THEM.
They looked up with startled eyes to see hovering directly over them
the mysterious dirigible.
Her deck seemed to be supporting several men, some of whom gazed
curiously at the boys; but what caught the adventurers' attention, and
riveted it, was the sight of several rifles aimed at them.
"Keep still, and we will not shoot," shouted a man who appeared to be
in command, "we do not wish to harm you."
"Hum," said Billy, "I don't see what they want to aim those shooting
irons at us for, then."
"It would be useless to try to run, I suppose," said the professor.
"It would be dangerous to try it," decided Frank, "those fellows
evidently mean to kill us if we try to disobey their orders."
As he spoke the dirigible was brought to the ground by her operators
and as she touched the snow several of her crew gave a shout of
surprise at the sight of the pile of treasure already excavated by the
boys. They started to run toward it; but were checked by a sharp cry
from their officer. They obeyed him instantly and marshaled in a
motionless line waiting his next command, but he left them and strode
through the snow toward the boys.
He was a dapper little brown man, dressed in the uniform of the
Mikado's Manchurian troops. A heavy, fur collar encircled his neck and
a fur cap was pulled over his ears.
"Don't make any hostile move or it will mean your death," he warned as
he advanced toward them.
The boys stood motionless, but the professor, in a high, angry voice,
broke out:
"What do you mean, sir, by approaching American citizens in this
manner? If it is the Viking ship you are after we have already claimed
it in the name of the United States."
"That matters little here,--where we are," said the little officer,
with a smile, "we are now in a country where might is right; and I
think you will acknowledge that we have the might on our side."
The boys gazed at the twelve men who stood facing them with leveled
rifles and could not help but acknowledge the truth of these words. It
seemed that they were utterly in the power of the Japanese.
"Your government shall hear about this," sputtered the professor
angrily. "It will not countenance such a high-handed proceeding. We
are not at war with your country. You have no right under the law of
nations, or any other law, to interfere with us."
"You will oblige me by stepping into the cabin of my dirigible," was
the response in an even tone. The others had paid not the slightest
attention to the professor's harangue.
"And if we refuse?" demanded the professor.
"If you refuse you will be shot, and do not, I beg, make the mistake
of thinking that I don't mean what I say."
There was nothing to do, under the circumstances, but to obey and,
with sinking hearts, they advanced in the direction of the big
air-ship. With great courtesy the interloper ushered them inside.
They found a warm and comfortable interior, well cushioned and even
luxurious in its appointments. Once they were well inside the little
man, with a bow, remarked:
"I now beg to be excused. You will find books and the professor
something to smoke if he wishes it. Don't make any attempt to escape
as I should regret to be compelled to have any of you shot."
He was gone. Closing the door behind him with a "click," that told the
boys that they were locked in.
"Prisoners," exclaimed Billy.
"That's it, and just as we have accomplished our wish," said Frank
bitterly; "it's too bad."
"Well, it can't be helped," said the professor, "let's look about and
see if there is not some way we can get out if an opportunity presents
itself."
They approached a window and through it could see the new arrivals
examining the edge of the gulf and peeping down at the Viking ship.
But as soon as they opened the casement and peered out a man with a
rifle appeared, as if from out of the earth, and sharply told them to
get inside.
"Well, we've got to spend the time somehow, we might as well examine
the ship," said the professor closing the window.
Somewhat cheered by his philosophical manner, the boys followed him as
he led the way from the main cabin through a steel door which they
found led into the engine-room. The engines were cut off, but a small
motor was operating a dynamo with a familiar buzzing sound. This was
the sound the boys had heard when the ship passed above them at night.
"What have they got the dynamo going for?" demanded Harry.
"I don't know. To warm the ship by electric current, or something I
suppose," said Frank listlessly. "I wonder where the engineer is? The
ship seems deserted."
"I guess he's out with the rest looking over OUR treasure," said the
professor bitterly.
"Ours no longer,--might is right, you know," quoted Harry miserably.
Frank had been examining the machinery with some care. Even as a
prisoner he felt some interest in the completeness of the engine room
of the Japanese dirigible. He bent over her twin fifty-horse-power
motors with admiring appreciation and examined the other machinery
with intense interest.
The purring dynamo next came in for his attention and he was puzzling
over the utility of several wires that led from it through the engine
room roof when a sudden thought flashed into his mind. With a cry of
triumph he bent over a small lever marked "accelerator," beside which
was a small gauge. He rapidly adjusted the gauge, so that it would not
register any more than the pressure it recorded at that moment and
then shoved the lever over to its furthest extent.
"Whatever are you doing?" demanded Harry, much mystified at these
actions, at the conclusion of which he had strolled up.
"You know that the gas in the bag of this dirigible is heated by
electric radiators in order to avoid condensation of the gas?" was the
seemingly incoherent reply.
"Yes," was the astonished answer, "but what has that--?"
"Hold on a minute," cried Frank, raising his hand, "and that gas when
expanded by heat soon becomes too buoyant for its container, and will,
if allowed to continue expanding, burst its confines."
Harry nodded his head.
"Well, then," Frank went on, "that's what's going to happen on this
ship."
"Whatever do you mean? I suppose I'm dense, but I don't see yet."
"I mean," said Frank, "that I've fixed the gas-heating radiators so
that in a few hours the bag above our head will be ripped into tatters
by a gas explosion. The resistance coils are now heating and expanding
the gas at a rate of ten times above the normal and the gauge I have
adjusted so that an inspection of it will show nothing to be the
matter."
"But what good will that do us?" urged Harry.
"It may save our lives. In any event the Viking treasure will never be
taken from here by another nation."