CHAPTER XXVI.
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 amoment's thought, "in these frozen regions and incased in ice as theship has been, I suppose that a human body could be kept in perfectpreservation indefinitely."
"I reckon that's it," exclaimed the professor, much relieved at thisexplanation, "but, boys, it gave me a dreadful start. He was lookingright at me and I thought I saw his head move. Perhaps it was Olafhimself."
"Nonsense," said Frank sharply, who, now that the door was actuallyopen, had lost his queer feeling of scare; "come on, let's explore thecabin. That poor dead Viking can't hurt us."
Followed by the others he entered the dark, mouldy cabin and couldhimself hardly repress a start as he found himself facing a man whomust have been of gigantic stature. The dead sea rover was seated at arough oak table with his head resting on his hand as if in deepthought. He had a mighty yellow beard reaching almost to his waist andwore a loose garment of some rough material. Had it not been for agreen-mold on his features he must have seemed a living man.
The cabin contained some rude couches and rough bunks of dark woodlined its sides, but otherwise, with the exception of the table andchairs, it was bare of furniture. Some curious looking weapons,including several shields and battle axes, were littered about theplace and some quaint instruments of navigation which Frank guessedwere crude foreshadows of the sextent and the patent log, lay on ashelf.
"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 andnever came back--we can't tell and never shall be able to," was therejoinder.
The bare, dark cabin was soon explored and the boys, marveling a gooddeal at the temerity of the old-time sailors who made their way acrossunknown seas in such frail ships, emerged into the air once more. Theydetermined to throw off in work the gloomy feelings that had oppressedthem in the moldering cabin of the Viking ship.
"The first thing to do," announced Frank, "is to get all we can ofthis stuff to the surface." He indicated the hold.
With this end in view a block and tackle was rigged on the surface ofthe plateau, and the ivory and gold hauled out as fast as the boyscould load it. The professor at the top attended to the hauling anddumping of each load. Soon a good pile of the valuable stuff laybeside him and he hailed the boys and suggested that it was time for arest.
Nothing loath to knock off their fatiguing task for a while, the boysclambered up to the surface by the rope and soon were busy eating thelunch they had brought with them. They washed it down with smoking hotchocolate which they had poured into their vacuum bottles at breakfasttime. 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 wasthere to talk about, that the big dirigible had entirely slipped fromtheir minds till they suddenly were jolted into abrupt recollection bya 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 themthe mysterious dirigible.
Her deck seemed to be supporting several men, some of whom gazedcuriously at the boys; but what caught the adventurers' attention, andriveted it, was the sight of several rifles aimed at them.
"Keep still, and we will not shoot," shouted a man who appeared to bein command, "we do not wish to harm you."
"Hum," said Billy, "I don't see what they want to aim those shootingirons 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 fellowsevidently mean to kill us if we try to disobey their orders."
As he spoke the dirigible was brought to the ground by her operatorsand as she touched the snow several of her crew gave a shout ofsurprise at the sight of the pile of treasure already excavated by theboys. They started to run toward it; but were checked by a sharp cryfrom their officer. They obeyed him instantly and marshaled in amotionless line waiting his next command, but he left them and strodethrough the snow toward the boys.
He was a dapper little brown man, dressed in the uniform of theMikado's Manchurian troops. A heavy, fur collar encircled his neck anda fur cap was pulled over his ears.
"Don't make any hostile move or it will mean your death," he warned ashe 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 thismanner? If it is the Viking ship you are after we have already claimedit 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 Ithink you will acknowledge that we have the might on our side."
The boys gazed at the twelve men who stood facing them with leveledrifles and could not help but acknowledge the truth of these words. Itseemed that they were utterly in the power of the Japanese.
"Your government shall hear about this," sputtered the professorangrily. "It will not countenance such a high-handed proceeding. Weare not at war with your country. You have no right under the law ofnations, or any other law, to interfere with us."
"You will oblige me by stepping into the cabin of my dirigible," wasthe response in an even tone. The others had paid not the slightestattention 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 mistakeof 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 bigair-ship. With great courtesy the interloper ushered them inside.
They found a warm and comfortable interior, well cushioned and evenluxurious in its appointments. Once they were well inside the littleman, with a bow, remarked:
"I now beg to be excused. You will find books and the professorsomething to smoke if he wishes it. Don't make any attempt to escapeas 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 theboys that they were locked in.
"Prisoners," exclaimed Billy.
"That's it, and just as we have accomplished our wish," said Frankbitterly; "it's too bad."
"Well, it can't be helped," said the professor, "let's look about andsee if there is not some way we can get out if an opportunity presentsitself."
They approached a window and through it could see the new arrivalsexamining 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 arifle appeared, as if from out of the earth, and sharply told them toget inside.
"Well, we've got to spend the time somehow, we might as well examinethe ship," said the professor closing the window.
Somewhat cheered by his philosophical manner, the boys followed him ashe led the way from the main cabin through a steel door which theyfound led into the engine-room. The engines were cut off, but a smallmotor was operating a dynamo with a familiar buzzing sound. This wasthe 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 Isuppose," said Frank listlessly. "I wonder where the engineer is? Theship seems deserted."
"I guess he's out with the rest looking over OUR treasure," said theprofessor bitterl
y.
"Ours no longer,--might is right, you know," quoted Harry miserably.
Frank had been examining the machinery with some care. Even as aprisoner he felt some interest in the completeness of the engine roomof the Japanese dirigible. He bent over her twin fifty-horse-powermotors with admiring appreciation and examined the other machinerywith intense interest.
The purring dynamo next came in for his attention and he was puzzlingover the utility of several wires that led from it through the engineroom roof when a sudden thought flashed into his mind. With a cry oftriumph he bent over a small lever marked "accelerator," beside whichwas a small gauge. He rapidly adjusted the gauge, so that it would notregister any more than the pressure it recorded at that moment andthen shoved the lever over to its furthest extent.
"Whatever are you doing?" demanded Harry, much mystified at theseactions, at the conclusion of which he had strolled up.
"You know that the gas in the bag of this dirigible is heated byelectric radiators in order to avoid condensation of the gas?" was theseemingly incoherent reply.
"Yes," was the astonished answer, "but what has that--?"
"Hold on a minute," cried Frank, raising his hand, "and that gas whenexpanded 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 thisship."
"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 sothat in a few hours the bag above our head will be ripped into tattersby a gas explosion. The resistance coils are now heating and expandingthe gas at a rate of ten times above the normal and the gauge I haveadjusted so that an inspection of it will show nothing to be thematter."
"But what good will that do us?" urged Harry.
"It may save our lives. In any event the Viking treasure will never betaken from here by another nation."
Boy Aviators' Polar Dash; or, Facing Death in the Antarctic Page 26