CHAPTER V.

IN A BAD FIX.

Pomp, left alone on board the Explorer, was for a time exceedingly lonesome and given to ennui.

The darky would much have preferred to have been with Frank upon the berg, despite the perils.

But he was never the one to grumble, however, at his master’s orders.

Frank’s word was always law with him and in this respect Pomp was an excellent servant.

Time passed and he did not hear anything of his companions.

Not a rifle shot came to his hearing to relieve his suspense.

“I done fink it am easy fo’ folks to get lost on dat big iceberg,” he muttered. “P’raps dat am why dey don’ come back no mo’.”

The darky waxed uneasy.

Minutes seemed to him increased in length ten times.

Still he continued in the same state of suspense.

“It am drefful curus!” he muttered, after awhile. “I don’ seem fo’ to undahstan’ it at all.”

Pomp walked the deck and kept a watch of the berg.

The Explorer lay in a small bay, and was surrounded upon three sides by high, mighty pinnacles and cliffs of ice.

Tiring after a while of watching for the non-returning absentees, Pomp went below.

He started a fire in his electric range and proceeded to cook some food.

“I reckon dey’ll be a bit hungry when dey gets back!” he muttered. “I jes’ fink Marse Frank will want suffin’ to eat!”

The darky was thus employed when a terrific thing happened.

Pomp’s first intimation of anything wrong was a tremendous roar like a burst of thunder.

This caused the Explorer to nearly stand on end, and Pomp was tumbled upon his head.

“Golly fo’ glory!” gasped the astounded darky. “What ebber hab happened now? Fo’ de Lor’s sakes, dis chile done beliebe de worl’ am gone to smash!”

The Explorer was pitching and tumbling about violently, and seemed in imminent danger of being totally wrecked.

As soon as he could recover himself, Pomp started for the deck.

As he emerged from the cabin, an astounding sight met his gaze.

Pomp stood with mouth agape and eyes distended.

“Fo’ de good Lor’s sake!” he gasped. “What am all dis?”

All around him and over him was ice, in a great canopy. Hot a sign of the sea or sky was to be had.

The Explorer was in the centre of a vast, high arched ice chamber, resting upon an inclosed lake, the waters of which were subsiding, after a spell of fearful commotion.

The darky was struck dumb.

He was wholly at a loss to understand the transformation.

“Golly fo’ glory, jiminy Christmas cracky, golly fo’ gosh!” burst forth the rattled African. “Am dis chile in a dream, or am I a fo’ suah loonatick?”

Pomp could not have sworn to either asseveration at that moment.

It was some moments before he fully recovered himself.

Then gradually an explanation of the affair began to creep over him.

“I jes’ fink I see it all now!” he muttered. “De top of de berg hab jest broke on an’ keeled right ober and covered dis chile up.”

Pomp had hit it right.

This was the correct explanation.

The berg had toppled over, or, at least, this section of it had, and in such a manner as to enclose the Explorer in a hollow chamber.

This was the distant rumble and commotion heard by Barney and Frank as described in a previous chapter.

It was certainly a remarkable incident.

The Explorer was now in a peculiar position.

Had she been a surface boat it would certainly have looked as though she was doomed.

For there was no visible outlet from the place.

But there was a chance that by going to the bottom she would be able to find her way out from beneath the berg.

But an awful chill now struck Pomp as he thought of Frank and Barney.

“Massy sakes!” muttered the horrified darky. “Wherebber am dem chillun, I’d jes’ like fo’ to know.”

There could be no more logical conclusion to the darky than that they had succumbed to death.

“Dat am a drefful fing!” he muttered. “What am dis chile to do?”

It was certainly a serious question.

But Pomp was a plucky darky, and after the first shock was over he practically settled down to business.

He knew that the emergency demanded desperate measures.

“De fus’ ting fo’ dis chile to do, I reckon,” he muttered, “am to git out from undah dis yer berg jes’ as quick as ebber I can.”

Accordingly Pomp went into the pilot-house.

He had first looked for an outlet through the berg.

This did not seem to exist.

Satisfied of this, Pomp turned the air-chamber lever.

In a moment the boat began to sink very rapidly.

Down it went until it touched the bottom of the ocean.

Then Pomp turned on the search-light.

The electric glare penetrated the black waters in every direction.

Pomp saw that the Explorer rested upon the bed of the sea.

Rocks and sand and sea plants were all about.

But the darky also saw mighty furrows freshly made in the mud and earth of the bottom.

About were various silver-like pillars and columns of ice wedged hard in the earth.

Like a flash the truth dawned upon the startled darky.

The iceberg had run aground, and this, no doubt, had caused it to shatter itself.

In this case the berg would no doubt remain stationary for a long time.

It was a thrilling position.

The darky had a dubious feeling now about his chances of making his way into the outer sea.

Unless an opening large enough to admit of the passage of the Explorer was found this would be an impossibility.

It was a horrible chance to contemplate.

But the darky did not give up hope.

He began at once to cautiously move the submarine boat about.

In vain he looked for an outlet from beneath the berg.

None seemed to exist.

Pomp felt desperate.

It looked as if the fate of the Explorer and its party was sealed.

The darky, in his desperation, began to count the chances of making a run into the walls of ice which blocked his passage.

It seemed to him the only way to get out of his present predicament.

The Explorer’s ram was a powerful one, and well calculated to cut its way through any field of ice.

The darky, in his desperate state of mind, failed to foresee any disastrous consequences.

It only seemed to him as extremely necessary to get out of the ice trap.

Accordingly he selected a wall of ice beyond which he believed lay the open sea.

Then drawing the Explorer back full forty feet, Pomp set the ram for the ice wall.

The next moment the impact came.

It was tremendous, considering the distance allowed for momentum.

For a moment Pomp thought the world was coming to an end.

The ram drove a great hole into the ice wall, and gave the berg a shock, which seemed for a moment terrible in its results.

Tons of ice fell to the bed of the sea, the berg shifted its position full five feet, tearing up the bed of the ocean.

It was all over in a moment.

But Pomp was horrified at the position in which he had been left.

The Explorer was imbedded beneath a mighty cake of ice, which lay with crushing weight across the bow.

Only the wonderful strength of the steel shell had resisted the pressure and saved the boat from destruction.

The darky was nearly prostrated with the shock.

It seemed as if his doom had overtaken him.

Could he have turned pale, it no doubt would have been a vast relief to him at that moment.

But he quickly recovered.

He was in a bad scrape, and now the idea was to pull out of it.

“Fo’ de Lor’s sake!” muttered the dazed darky, “I done fink I ought to know bettah than dat. Ob co’se de ice would fall an’ it am jes’ a libin’ wondah dat dis chile amn’t buried alibe!”

Indeed he was not so sure but that he was already.

Pomp started the electric engines.

But they would not move the submarine boat a peg.

There it lay wedged beneath the ice with full twenty fathoms of water above.

Again at any moment the berg was apt to shift its position and crush the boat like an eggshell.

Pomp saw his deadly peril, and his face wore an expression of fearful horror and anxiety.

“Fo’ de Lor’s sake what will become of Marse Frank now?” he wailed. “I’se done got into a fix I can’t git out ob very well!”

The darky was frantic.

In vain he tried to conjure up a plan for extricating the boat.

And at the last moment, what seemed like a forlorn hope came to him.

He dashed down into the hold.

When he came up he carried a couple of jack-screws of very fine steel and great lifting power.

“I done fix dat big hunk ob ice now!” he muttered.

He quickly donned his diving suit.

Then he took the jack-screws and went into the vestibule.

It was but a moment’s work to let on the water, and after the chamber had filled he emerged upon the deck.

Pomp descended to the bed of the ocean and approached the block of ice.

But, as he did so, what seemed like a huge mound of earth before him began to move.

Up it went, and the water began to move violently. Then Pomp saw the wide jaws of a monster fish.

In an instant a thrill of horror came over him.

It was a huge species of the sperm whale, and a blow from one of its flukes would kill him instantly.