“We won’t hit many more,” I gasped back.
We did hit another at that instant, and plowed through still another immediately afterward. Then we appeared to strike a comparatively smooth place, for we felt the rush and bump of the snow beneath almost constantly, though the spray of it became a blinding volume that meant suffocation and death.
“Cut the ropes!” shouted Gale, “and let her go!”
He was seated in the stern, and must have suited the action to the word, for I felt the bow, where I was, rise, and looking back saw Gale holding on for dear life to keep from spilling out behind. He did not look contented, and evidently had changed his mind about a through ticket. Like Uncle Laxart, he was willing to wait for the next balloon, or to walk, or to go in any way that was quieter. Ferratoni and Sturritt were also sawing at the side ropes, and I quickly got my knife ready to sever the single rope at the bow last. Mr. Sturritt succeeded in getting the ropes on his side cut off first, and for some moments our boat, or rather our sled, for it was that now, was pitching or rolling through the drifts on side or bottom, just as it happened. Then we seemed to right, and I guessed, though I could not see, that Ferratoni had in some manner got his ropes cut away. Our sled was being pulled now by its single cord up hill and down dale, helter-skelter, lickety-split, bounding, leaping, plunging, and courting destruction. From out of the madness of it all came Gale’s voice.
“Here we come! Head us, somebody! Dern our fool souls, we’re runnin’ away!” And a second later, “Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”
“Cut her, Nick, cut her! I can’t stick on any longer!”—Page [202].
I had been holding the edge of my knife to the rope, hesitating to cut, for the reason that we appeared to have slowed down somewhat, and were yet making such excellent time. Now, with a slash, we were free.
There was a sudden halting, a plunge, a wild medley of legs and arms and ropes and Antarctic snow, and over all a tightly fitting cover, and blackness.
The cover was the overturned boat. The blackness, the inside of it, where I was. I was half stunned at first, however, and did not realize just what had occurred. Then I heard Gale’s voice outside.