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 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."