“Gee! The TNT!” exclaimed Joe. “I’d forgotten all about it. But you go up first, Bob, and I’ll wait below.”
“Nothing doing! We haven’t time to argue, young fellow, so put this rope under your arms and I’ll give the signal for you to be hauled up.”
Joe saw there was no time for argument, so he let Bob fasten the rope under his arms. Then Bob gave it a tug, and a moment later Joe ascended swiftly as stout arms hauled at the cord.
Left alone in the cold green depths, Bob shivered. Over an hour gone already, he felt sure. In less than another hour the TNT would explode, rending the berg to fragments! Bob did not have to think hard to realize what would happen to any one on the iceberg at that time. It seemed an age before the rope came twisting down to him, and he lost no time in passing the loop over his head and under his arms. Then he was hauled swiftly up into the thrice welcome sunlight, where he stood blinking like an owl in the glare.
“All right, men, back to the boat on the double. We’ve got to get off this berg, and get off quick, or you know what’s going to happen to us. How are you feeling, Atwood? Can you make a run for it?”
“With two cans of TNT back of me, I can travel fast,” declared Joe, and they set out on a run for the boat and safety.
Sliding, slipping, and leaping, they ran across the slippery ice at breakneck speed, taking desperate chances as the realization of their growing peril sank home. Their time was growing short, and they still had a long way to go.
What if Mr. Mayhew had timed the fuse a little short? In that case, the explosion might occur at any moment now, and the thought gave wings to their feet.
At one place where they had laboriously cut steps in the ice coming up, they disregarded them altogether, and slid down the slippery green slope at terrific speed, slowing up enough when they reached a level space to climb to their feet. Joe, weakened by his fall, was unable to hold the furious pace, and toward the last Bob ran on one side of him and Herb on the other, helping him along over the most difficult places.
At length they sighted the ocean, and this gave them heart for a final wild sprint. To their joy, they saw that Captain Springer had replaced the rowboat by the ship’s motorboat, so that they could get away more quickly.