Another crash sent echoes resounding through the remaining compartment. All around the three were suit-clad figures, grotesque clumsy giants, all feeling new strength as they gulped with leathern throats and lungs at the artificial air which was giving them a respite, however brief, from the death they had been sinking into. In the third compartment of the Peary, five seal-like creatures with swift and beautiful movements picked up their torpoon battering ram again; while all around the outside of the Peary their hundreds of watching fellows pressed in closely.
"Yes!" cried Lawson, the scientist. "But the explosion—it might shatter the ship!"
"No matter; I expect it to!" answered Ken. "Then you can leave through a crack instead of a port-lock."
"Yes—but you!" objected the captain. "Get on a suit!"
"No; I'm jumping into my torpoon in the other port-lock. I've got the food in it. Now, Sallorsen, this is your job. I'll be in my torpoon, but I won't be able to let myself out the port. You open it, right after the explosion. Understand?"
"Yes," replied Sallorsen, and Lawson nodded.
"All right," gasped Ken Torrance. "Empty the chamber." As the captain did so, Ken opened the lid of the biscuit can and adjusted the timing device on the exposed unit in the clothing-wrapped bundle. Then he replaced it, ticking, in the can and thrust the can bodily into the emptied chamber of the port-lock. He closed the inner door of the chamber, and said to the men by him:
"Close your face-plates!"
And Ken pushed the release button: and then he was running to the other port-lock and to his torpoon, and harnessing himself in.