"Sea-suits—in those lockers."
Ken Torrance swung around and rapidly opened the lockers. Pulling out the bulky suits, he cried:
"You carry that food back. Then come and help me."
But of the corner of his eye, as he worked, he could see the ominous preparations beyond in the flooded compartment—the sealmen raising the torpoon, guiding it back to the far end; leveling it out. Ken was sure the door could not stand more than two or three blows at the most. Two or three minutes, that meant—but all the sea-suits had to go back into the fourth compartment!
He was in torment as he worked. For him, the conditions were just as bad as for the men who had lived below in the submarine for a month; the poisonous, foul air racked him just as much; what breath he got he fought for just as painfully. But in his body was a greater store of strength, and fresher muscles; and he taxed his body to its very limit.
Panting, his head seeming on the point of splitting, Ken Torrance stumbled through into the last compartment laden with a pile of sea-suits. He dropped them clattering in a pile around his feet and forced himself back again. Another trip; and another....
It would never have been done had not Sallorsen and Lawson, the scientist, come to his aid. The help they offered was meager, and slow, but it sufficed. Laden for the fifth time, Ken heard what he had been anticipating for every second of the all too short, agonizing minutes: a sharp, grinding crack, and the following reverberation. He snatched a glance around to see the torpoon falling to the deck of the second compartment—the sealmen lifting it swiftly again—and a thin but definite sliver in the quarsteel of the door.
But the last suit was gotten into the fourth compartment, and the connecting door closed and carefully locked and bolted. The removal of the suits, had been achieved—but what now?
Panting, completely exhausted, Ken forced his brain to the question. From every side he attacked the problem, but nowhere could he find the loophole he sought. Everything, it seemed, had been tried, and had failed, during the Peary's long captivity. There was nothing left. True, he had his torpoon, and its nitro-shell gun with a clip of nineteen shells; but what use were shells? Even if each one accounted for one of the sealmen, there would still remain a swarm.