"I think, admiral," said Captain Adams, "that if I were to read you the article containing Dunbar's story written by a special commissioner of the New York Western Hemisphere, who was the first to interview Dunbar at Sitka, on learning of his arrival there, it would be perhaps the best narration of his perilous adventures." As the captain spoke he drew a copy of the Western Hemisphere from his pocket.
"By all means," I replied, "let us hear what the press said about Dunbar and his adventures."
Thereupon Captain Adams read the New York Western Hemisphere's account of Dunbar's adventures, as follows:
"AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY!
"The North Pole Found to Be an Enormous Cavern,
Leading to a Subterranean World!
"The Earth Proves to Be a Hollow Shell One Thousand
Miles in Thickness, Lit by an Interior Sun!
"Oceans and Continents, Islands and Cities Spread Upon
the Roof of the Interior Sphere!
"Boatswain Dunbar and Seaman Henderson, of the 'Polar
King,' Having Deserted the Ship as She was Entering
Plutusia, Have Arrived at Sitka, Alaska,
in a Desperate Condition, and Have
Been Interviewed by a 'Western
Hemisphere' Commissioner.
"They Say Lexington White, Commander of the 'Polar
King,' is at Present Sailing Underneath Canada
on an Interior Sea!
"Tremendous Possibilities for Science and Commerce!
"The Fabled Realms of Pluto no Longer a Myth!
"Gold! Gold! Beyond the Dreams of Madness!
"The story of the discovery of Plutusia and the Polar Gulf, as told by the two shipwrecked survivors of the mutineers of the Polar King now at Sitka, Alaska, to the Western Hemisphere, will form an epoch in the history of the world. The renown of Columbus and Magellan is overshadowed by the glory of Lexington White, a citizen of the United States, who fitted out a ship for polar discovery, and, taking the command himself, has unravelled the mystery of the North Pole, discovered the Polar Gulf and the interior world.
"Having penetrated the Polar Gulf about three hundred miles, and having discovered the interior sun, a fear seized on a number of the sailors, among whom were Boatswain Dunbar and his companion, Henderson, who are the only survivors of twelve men who left the Polar King in an open boat to return home again, and to whose safe arrival in Sitka the world is indebted for news of the important discoveries that had been made.
"Dunbar and Henderson arrived in Sitka in a very forlorn condition, almost starved to death and utterly exhausted with their terrible journey homeward. They seem to forget largely the incidents of the journey outward in the Polar King, but have a very clear recollection of their own individual experiences in returning to civilization again. Dunbar, with his eleven associates and the Esquimaux dogs, were no sooner cut adrift from the Polar King than they began to realize their terrible position. Borne on the breast of the immense tidal wave that vibrated up and down the polar cavern, they were tossed helplessly to and fro, now flung almost out of its mouth and again sucked back into its midnight recesses. They floated for days in the gigantic tunnel of water that threatened to collapse any moment and overwhelm them. They would fain have returned to the ship, but the breeze blowing out of the cavern wafted them far from their comrades, and they therefore bent all their energies to the task of getting home again. The light of the polar summer that lit the mouth of the gulf was their guide that led them back to the old familiar world.
"Happily for the adventurers, the direction of the wind continued favorable to their voyage. They made about a hundred miles a day, and in five days reached the edge of the outer ocean. Here again the grandeur of the scene appalled them. Let the reader imagine a little boat carrying twelve souls out of that monstrous cavern five hundred miles in diameter. Think of fifteen hundred miles of ocean forming the mouth of the world that shone in the Arctic sunlight like molten silver surrounding an abyss of darkness.
"Dunbar and his companions had no sooner emerged from the gulf and seen once more the light of the sun—our own sun—than they wept for joy. But again, when they thought of the terrible barrier of ice they had to cross again they began to wish they had remained with the Polar King. Thus man fluctuates between this or that impulse, as he is moved.
"'I say, captain,' said Walker, one of the men, 'don't you think it about as safe to go back and find the ship as to run the chance of being frozen to death on the ice?'