Then the captives became silent, filled with their sad thoughts and worry over their predicament. On and on went the sledge over the ice, into the unknown. Mile after mile was covered. Then the driver of the prisoners, as well as the one in charge of three sleds that followed, halted the dogs. All the natives talked rapidly together, pointing this way and that.
"They've missed the path!" exclaimed Andy. "We are lost in this land of snow!"
CHAPTER XXII
MAGNETIC FIRE WORSHIPERS
Jack's only thought, when he felt himself falling from the deck of the airship to the earth, was that he would strike on a pinnacle of ice and be killed. Much the same were the feelings of the others, as they admitted later. Jack was half senseless from fright when, seemingly half an hour after he tumbled, though in reality it was but a few seconds, he stuck head first into a big drift of soft snow.
His mouth, ears, eyes and nose were filled with the fluffy flakes, and he nearly choked before he could struggle to an upright position and clear a breathing space.
To his astonishment he saw similar struggles going on in several places in the snow. First Mark stuck his head out of the drift. Then Bill's face appeared, to be followed by Tom's, and next Dirola bobbed up, smiling as though it was the biggest joke in the world, and as if falling from an airship was an every-day occurrence with her.
"Well, we're alive," remarked Jack, after getting his breath.
"We couldn't have fallen so very far after all," said Mark.
"It seemed like a mighty long ways when I was a-comin'," came from Bill.