powerful than any
dynamic force dreamed of in the preceding century, was instantly
generated. The inconceivably rapid motion which forced it forward like
a screw must have then commenced, and it had bored itself down deep into
the solid earth.

"Roland, dear," said Margaret, stepping quietly up to him, tears on her
pale countenance, "don't you think it can be hoisted up again?"

"I hope not," said he.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, astonished.

"Because," he answered, "if it has not penetrated far enough into the
earth to make it utterly out of our power to get it again, the thing is
a failure."

"More than that," thought Margaret; "if it has gone down entirely out of
our reach, the thing is a failure all the same, for I don't believe he
can ever be induced to make another."

CHAPTER XVI. THE TRACK OF THE SHELL

During the course of his inventive life Roland Clewe had become
accustomed to disappointments; he was very much afraid, indeed, that he
was beginning to expect them. If that really happened, there would be an
end to his career.

But when he spoke in this way to Margaret, she almost scolded him.

"How utterly absurd it is," she said, "for a man who has just discovered
the north pole to sit down in an arm-chair and talk in that way!"

"I didn't discover it," he said; "it was Sammy and Gibbs who found the
pole. As for me--I don't suppose I shall ever see it."

"I am not so sure of that," she said. "We may yet invent a telescope
which shall curve its reflected rays over the rotundity of the earth and
above the highest icebergs, so that you and I may sit here and look at
the waters of the pole gently splashing around the great buoy."

"And charge a dollar apiece to all other people who would like to look
at the pole, and so we might make much money," said he. "But I must
really go and do something; I shall go crazy if I sit here idle."

Margaret knew that the loss of the shell was the greatest blow that
Roland had ever yet received. His ambitions as a scientific inventor
were varied, but she was well aware that for some years he had
considered it of great importance to do something which would bring
him in money enough to go on with his investigations and labors without
depending entirely upon her for the necessary capital. If he could
have tunnelled a mountain with this shell, or if he had but partially
succeeded in so doing, money would have come to him. He would have made
his first pecu