The engineer reappeared.
"As I feared, sir," he reported. "It's the shaft, sir. She'll have to go to shore for repairs. Only a hot fire and heavy hammering can fix her. Can't be done on board or on the ice."
"Ashore!" Dave rubbed his forehead, pulled his forelock, and tried to imagine which way land might be after ten hours of travel in the uncharted waters of the great Arctic sea.
"I'll leave it to you, Jarvis," he smiled. "If you can locate land, and show us how to get there across these piles of ice with a disabled submarine, you shall have a medal from the National Geographic Society."
The engineer was not a gob, strictly speaking. He was an old English seaman, who had often sailed the Arctic in a whaler. Now he went below with the words:
"I'll find the nearest land, right enough, me lad; but as to gittin' there, that's quite another matter."
Thereafter the engineer might be seen from time to time dashing up the hatchway to take an observation, then back to the chart-table, where he examined first this chart, then that one. Some of the charts were new, just from the hands of the hydrographic bureau. These belonged to the craft. Others were soiled and torn; patched here and there, or reinforced by cloth from a discarded shirt. These belonged to Jarvis, himself; had been with him on many a journey and were now most often consulted.
"Near's h'I can make it, sir," he said, at last, "we're some two hundred miles from Point Hope on the Alaska shores and a bit farther from a point on the Russian shore, which the natives call On-na-tak, though what the place is like h'I can't say, never 'aving been there. Far's h'I know, no white man's been there, h'either; leastwise, not in our generation."
He studied the charts and made one further observation:
"Far's h'I can tell, sir," he smiled, "On-na-tak's h'our only chance. Current sets that way h'at three knots an hour. That means we'll drift there in four or five days. There'll be driftwood on the beach, and, with good luck, we can fix 'er up there. Mayhap there's coal in the banks by the sea, and that's greater luck for us if there is."