“Those Icelanders will think we are American aborigines instead of civilized beings,” grumbled Ned.
“I reckon the polar bears will not criticize Koku’s selection of weapons,” chuckled Tom. “I’ve seen Koku catch a charging jaguar on the point of that spear in mid-air and impale it as you would stick a beetle with a pin. And one crack with that war club would knock over a walrus, I believe. Let him alone, Ned.”
“Humph!” said Ned. “You are quite sure, are you, that we shall search the Greenland Sea for Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor? You thoroughly believe Skipper Karofsen’s report?”
“Give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Tom placidly. “You can scarcely judge a man’s character by his cablegrams.”
Discussion was mostly barred, however, when the Winged Arrow was well up and away from her base. They followed a slightly different course to the ocean line than they had on the trial trip. On the chart table Tom Swift had thumbtacked a brand new map and had plotted out their course from the vicinity of Shopton to the principal seaport of Iceland.
The direction was almost exactly north of east. It would take the flying boat over the great fishing banks south of Newfoundland, across the northern, or summer, route of the transatlantic steamships, and over the lonely reaches of that great northern ocean on which at this season of the year drifted countless icebergs.
Ned studied the course as closely as Tom had previously done. “If Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor started for Greenland to catch a steamer, how is it Karofsen reports that they were wrecked in the Greenland Sea?” he asked. “That is north of Iceland. The most direct route to the Greenland coast from Reykjavik is across Denmark Strait.”
“I guess the only town from which fish is shipped south is on what they call the Liverpool Coast,” his friend replied. “You will see that that section of Greenland is across Greenland Sea. If the current sets toward the south, however,” Tom added, “this gigantic iceberg that Karofsen tells about may be drifting into Denmark Strait. That being the case, it may possibly narrow our search.”
Ned merely grunted in rejoinder. Even if they reached Iceland safely in the flying boat, he had grave doubts as to their ever finding a “chunk of ice,” as he expressed it, floating around in the Arctic seas with seven men upon it and a treasure chest containing more than a hundred and twenty thousand Danish crowns!
When the flying boat crossed the line of the seacoast and flew out over the Atlantic it was plain that the sea had gone down. When they were well out from the shore the surface of the water seemed as smooth as a mill pond.