The explosion had shattered the coating of ice above the vessel's decks and had also exposed her hold at a spot at which the deck itself had been blown in.

"I can't believe my eyes," shouted Billy, as he gazed.

"It's there, right enough," gasped Frank, "the old ma.n.u.script was right after all."

As for the professor and Harry, they stood speechless, literally petrified with astonishment.

Below them, exposed to view, where the deck had been torn away, was revealed the vessel's hold packed full, apparently, of yellow walrus ivory and among the tusks there glittered dully bars of what seemed solid gold.

Frank was the first down the rope. The explosion had certainly done enough damage, and if the ice "cradle" beneath the vessel's keel had not been so thick she must have been sunk with the shock of the detonation. The ice "blanket" that covered her though had been shattered like a pane of gla.s.s--and, with picks thrown down onto the decks from above the boys soon cleared a path to the door of a sort of raised cabin aft.

Then they paused.

A nameless dread was on them of disturbing the secrets of the long dead Vikings. Before them was the cabin door which they longed to open but somehow none of them seemed to have the courage to do so. The portal was of ma.s.sive oak but had been sprung by the explosion till it hung on its hinges weakly. One good push would have shoved it down.

"Say, Billy, come and open this door," cried Harry, but Billy was intently gazing into the hold, now and then jumping down into it and handling the ivory and bar gold with an awe-stricken face.

"Well, are you boys going to open that door?" asked the professor at last. He had been busy in another part of the ship examining the rotten wood to see if he could find any sort of insects in it.

"Well--er, you see, professor--" stammered Harry.

"What--you are scared," exclaimed the professor, laughing.

"No; not exactly scared, but--," quavered Frank, "it doesn't seem just right to invade that place. It's like breaking open a tomb."

"Nonsense," exclaimed the scientist, who had no more sentiment about him than a steel hack-saw, "watch me."

He bounded forward and put his shoulder to the mouldering door. It fell inward with a dull crash and as it did so the professor leaped backward with a startled cry, stumbling over a deck beam and sprawling in a heap.

"W-w-what's the matter?" gasped Harry, with a queer feeling at the back of his scalp and down his spine.

"T-T-THERE'S SOMEONE IN THERE!" was the startling reply from the rec.u.mbent scientist.

CHAPTER XXVI.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP.

"Someone in there?" Frank echoed the exclamation in amazed tones.

"Y-y-yes," stammered the scared professor, "he's sitting at a table."

"It must be one of the long dead Vikings," said Frank, after a moment's thought, "in these frozen regions and incased in ice as the ship has been, I suppose that a human body could be kept in perfect preservation indefinitely."

"I reckon that's it," exclaimed the professor, much relieved at this explanation, "but, boys, it gave me a dreadful start. He was looking right at me and I thought I saw his head move. Perhaps it was Olaf himself."

"Nonsense," said Frank sharply, who, now that the door was actually open, had lost his queer feeling of scare; "come on, let's explore the cabin. That poor dead Viking can't hurt us."

Followed by the others he entered the dark, mouldy cabin and could himself hardly repress a start as he found himself facing a man who must have been of gigantic stature. The dead sea rover was seated at a rough oak table with his head resting on his hand as if in deep thought. He had a mighty yellow beard reaching almost to his waist and wore a loose garment of some rough material. Had it not been for a green-mold on his features he must have seemed a living man.

The cabin contained some rude couches and rough bunks of dark wood lined its sides, but otherwise, with the exception of the table and chairs, it was bare of furniture. Some curious looking weapons, including several shields and battle axes, were littered about the place and some quaint instruments of navigation which Frank guessed were crude foreshadows of the s.e.xtent and the patent log, lay on a shelf.

"How do you suppose he died?" asked Billy in an awed whisper, indicating the dead man.

"I don't know--frozen to death perhaps," was Frank's reply.

"But where are the others? The crew,--his companions?"

"Perhaps they rowed away; perhaps they went out to seek for food and never came back--we can't tell and never shall be able to," was the rejoinder.

The bare, dark cabin was soon explored and the boys, marveling a good deal at the temerity of the old-time sailors who made their way across unknown seas in such frail ships, emerged into the air once more. They determined to throw off in work the gloomy feelings that had oppressed them in the moldering cabin of the Viking ship.

"The first thing to do," announced Frank, "is to get all we can of this stuff to the surface." He indicated the hold.

With this end in view a block and tackle was rigged on the surface of the plateau, and the ivory and gold hauled out as fast as the boys could load it. The professor at the top attended to the hauling and dumping of each load. Soon a good pile of the valuable stuff lay beside him and he hailed the boys and suggested that it was time for a rest.

Nothing loath to knock off their fatiguing task for a while, the boys clambered up to the surface by the rope and soon were busy eating the lunch they had brought with them. They washed it down with smoking hot chocolate which they had poured into their vacuum bottles at breakfast time. The hot stuff was grateful and invigorating in the chill air, and they ate and drank with keen appet.i.tes.

So excited were they by the events of the morning, and so much was there to talk about, that the big dirigible had entirely slipped from their minds till they suddenly were jolted into abrupt recollection by a happening that brought them all to their feet with a shout of alarm.

FROM HIGH IN THE AIR A VOICE HAD HAILED THEM.

They looked up with startled eyes to see hovering directly over them the mysterious dirigible.

Her deck seemed to be supporting several men, some of whom gazed curiously at the boys; but what caught the adventurers' attention, and riveted it, was the sight of several rifles aimed at them.

"Keep still, and we will not shoot," shouted a man who appeared to be in command, "we do not wish to harm you."

"Hum," said Billy, "I don't see what they want to aim those shooting irons at us for, then."

"It would be useless to try to run, I suppose," said the professor.

"It would be dangerous to try it," decided Frank, "those fellows evidently mean to kill us if we try to disobey their orders."

As he spoke the dirigible was brought to the ground by her operators and as she touched the snow several of her crew gave a shout of surprise at the sight of the pile of treasure already excavated by the boys. They started to run toward it; but were checked by a sharp cry from their officer. They obeyed him instantly and marshaled in a motionless line waiting his next command, but he left them and strode through the snow toward the boys.

He was a dapper little brown man, dressed in the uniform of the Mikado's Manchurian troops. A heavy, fur collar encircled his neck and a fur cap was pulled over his ears.

"Don't make any hostile move or it will mean your death," he warned as he advanced toward them.

The boys stood motionless, but the professor, in a high, angry voice, broke out:

"What do you mean, sir, by approaching American citizens in this manner? If it is the Viking ship you are after we have already claimed it in the name of the United States."

"That matters little here,--where we are," said the little officer, with a smile, "we are now in a country where might is right; and I think you will acknowledge that we have the might on our side."