“They say,” said the Eskimo, showing his white teeth in a grin, “that they know we are spirits—­spirits of dead whales, since we come out of a whale’s back, that came up from under the sea.  They say not kill them us please.  They say this that one.  They say, kill plenty whale that one chief native.  They say, fire for spirit of dead whale not make that, them.  They say that, this one native.  But they say not kill them and for sure they make fire, sing song for spirit of dead whale.”

The Doctor, who understood this to be one of the superstitions of the natives, and knew that they had taken the submarine for a whale, began to laugh.  But at once he checked himself.

Turning a scowling face at the only two standing natives, one of whom had a fresh cut across his cheek, he stormed: 

“And why have these fellows no shame?  Tell them to fall down at once, or I will step on them.”

Azazruk repeated the message, and, surprised and frightened, the two men obeyed.

The Doctor eyed the two curiously for a moment as they lay there squinting up at him, their slant eyes gleaming with suppressed anger.

“Look like they’d been in a fight,” he remarked.

And so they did.  The darker of the two had the cut on his cheek, before mentioned, his fur parka was torn half off him, displaying some ugly bruises.  His companion had lost half a sleeve and his right hand was bleeding.

“They’re surely rascals, but you must play the good Samaritan at all times,” he said, as he bent over one of them.  “Rainey, get my case from the locker, will you?”

Rainey hurried to the submarine, a half mile away, while the natives, still half sprawling on the frozen earth, eyed the hardier fellows, while the Doctor bent over them, as if expecting at any moment to see them drop dead as a result of the magic power of these great spirits from the belly of a whale.

It was Jarvis and Dave who were responsible for the condition of the two natives of the strange bearing.  When Jarvis saw their ugly faces and gleaming knives at the door of the ivory prison he was ready for a fight.  His face turned purple, as he muttered between clinched teeth: 

“H’it’s our chance.  ‘Ere’s where h’I make a killin’.  At ’em Dave!”

And, led by his sturdy engineer, Dave hove at them right royally.

Their knives were short but their arms long, and as for skill, there were no better trained men in the army than Dave and Jarvis.

They made quick work of it.  The “bloomin’ ’eathen,” surprised by the sudden onslaught, were on their backs in a trice.  Two of them fared as I have said, and as for the third, he came out with a head so badly pummeled by Jarvis’ fist that he was content to crawl into a dark igloo and stay there.

Once outside the prison Jarvis and Dave glanced quickly about them for a hiding-place.  Much to their surprise, they did not see a native about the village.  Made bold by this, they skirted the rear of the last row of huts, and, dodging down a snowed-in ravine, hid at last in the ice-heaps not twenty rods from the submarine.  Not being aware, however, that their friends had succeeded in reaching the shore-ice, they crouched in their icy shelter, their teeth chattering from cold and excitement.