Old Andy was tied into his bunk, or he never could have stayed there, so violent was the motion.

“Where is Dirola?” asked Mr. Henderson suddenly.

“She was out on the stern a while ago,” answered Bill.  “She was saying something about it being too hot for her inside.  That was before the storm came up.”

“We must see to her,” said the captain.  “She must come inside.  The motion of the ship may toss her off!”

Bill volunteered to go out and bring the Esquimaux woman in.  It was all he could do to open the door, so strong was the pressure of wind on it.

When he did swing it back such a cloud of snow entered that it seemed as if some one had emptied a feather bed in the cabin.

“She don’t want to come in,” Bill reported when, after much exertion, he had made his way back again.  “She is laughing at this storm, and says it’s like what they have where she came from.  She is braced against the cabin, and is wrapped up in furs.  I guess she is all right.”

“I suppose we must let her have her way,” remarked Amos Henderson.  “After all she may be used to it.”

In anxiousness and apprehension the voyagers waited for the storm to cease.  But it showed no signs of abating.  More and more violently rocked the Monarch.

“We must shut off the gasolene stoves!” exclaimed the inventor after a particularly heavy pitching and tossing motion, when the craft nearly turned over.  “If we upset, the fluid will run from the tanks, come in contact with the flames, and we will burn in mid-air!”

Washington set to work turning off all the gasolene, and the larger tanks were lashed fast and securely stopped up.

“Better put our furs on,” suggested the inventor.  “It will be very cold in here soon.”

The lack of heat quickly made itself felt, the ship becoming like an ice-box.  Old Andy was warmly covered, for he was asleep in his bunk, having fallen into a slumber after being lashed in.  The noise of the storm did not awaken him, since he was somewhat stupid from a fever into which his wound had thrown him.

All that could be done was to wait and hope.  No human force could prevail over the storm.  Bracing themselves against whatever offered, and clinging by their hands to projections, the adventurers in the cabin expected every moment to be their last.  Washington, who had gone out to the engine room, came hurrying back.

“Look, here, Perfessor,” he said, sticking his head in the dining cabin door, “de gas machine hab stopped circulatin’.”

“Did you shut off the power?”

“No, sah!  I ain’t done gone and shut off no power!”

Making his way as best he could while the ship pitched and tossed, Amos Henderson reached the engine room.  He looked at the gas generator.  The power was turned on full, but the apparatus was not working.

“That is strange,” he remarked.  “I wonder—­”