There was a click, and a split of blue flame followed by a roar that shook the ground under their feet. From the gully a great fountain of ice shot up mingled with smoke.
"I'm afraid I gave her too much," regretted Frank apprehensively, as the noise subsided and the smoke blew away. "I hope we haven't sunk her."
"That would be a calamity," exclaimed the professor, "but I imagine the ice beneath her was too thick to release her, even with such a heavy charge as you fired."
"Let's hope so," was the rejoinder.
Billy led the others on the rush back to the gulf.
All uttered a cry of amazement as they gazed over its edge.
The explosion had shattered the coating of ice above the vessel's decks and had also exposed her hold at a spot at which the deck itself had been blown in.
"I can't believe my eyes," shouted Billy, as he gazed.
"It's there, right enough," gasped Frank, "the old manuscript was right after all."
As for the professor and Harry, they stood speechless, literally petrified with astonishment.