Jarvis had an ugly slash on his right arm.  Dave had just succeeded in binding this up when they heard footsteps approaching.  Jamming themselves hard into a crevice of ice, Jarvis whispered: 

“H’I’ll fight t’ a finish before h’I go back to that white prison of the bloomin’ ’eathen.”

Dave made no response.

The steps came nearer, then began to die away.

“Didn’t sound like the bloomin’ ’eathen,” muttered Jarvis.  “No near’s soft and glidin’.  ’Ere ’e comes back.  H’I’ll ’ave a look.”  Creeping close to a corner, he peered cautiously out, then with a roar: 

“Blime me, it’s Rainey!” He sprang from concealment, almost embracing the young gob in his delight.

It was a joyful meeting that took place between the united parties.

When Jarvis saw the Doctor working over the disabled natives he roared first with laughter, then with anger.  His last desire was to put them out of the way at once.

“For, sir,” he argued, “them hain’t no natural, ordinary ’eathen, indeed not, sir.  They are the very h’old Nick ’isself, sir.”

But Dave suggested putting them in their own ivory prison, and this advice prevailed.  After their wounds were dressed they were thrust in and the door barred from without.  Wiser men than the “sub” crew have learned that a man is seldom safe in a prison of his own making, but the sailors never gave the prisoners another thought.

“Rainey,” said the engineer, as he found himself alone with the young gob, “we’ll all be rich men.”

“How?” asked his companion.

“There’s mineral!  Mineral!  Gold, me lad, tons of it!” The older man’s wrinkled face caught the tints of the sunset and seemed to take on the hue of the metal of which he spoke.

CHAPTER X

TO THE TREASURE CITY

Once all the members of the submarine party were reunited, their one thought was to repair their damaged craft as soon as possible and start again on their way to the Pole.  Perhaps the engineer wasted a thought now and again on the supposed great mineral wealth of that peninsula, but if he did, he said nothing.

The men were divided into three groups.  The first, the mechanics, undertook the task of removing the shaft; the second guarded the craft against possible attack by the natives, while the third was dispatched up the beach to search for firewood which the mechanics must have.

The work of the guard seemed a joke.  Not one of the natives could be induced to approach the dark “spirit-whale” which some of their comrades had seen rise from the water.  Even after the steel shaft had been brought ashore as tangible evidence that the craft was a thing of metal, they could not be induced to approach it.

The wood hunters found their task a hard one, for, either there never had been much driftwood on these shores, or the natives had used it for summer camp-fires.  They searched far down the bay without finding a sufficient quantity to make “a decent fire over which to roast ’hot-dogs’,” as Rainey expressed it.