n was among them, shaking the hopeless, dying forms,
rousing them to the chance for life. Several more crawled to obey. By
the time the next crash of the torpoon came, eleven out of the
twenty-one survivors were working with clumsy, eager fingers at their
sea-suits, pushing feet and legs in, drawing the tough fabric up over
their bodies, sliding their arms in, and struggling with quick panting
breaths to raise the heavy helmets and fasten them into place.
Then--air!

Again the ear-shattering crash. The scientist and the captain drove at
the rest of the crew. They stumbled, those two fighting men, and twice
Lawson went down in a heap as his legs gave under him; but he got up
again, and they began dragging the suits to the men who had not even
the strength to rise, shoving inert limbs into place, switching on the
air-units inside the helmets and, gasping themselves, fastening the
helmets down. Theirs was a conflict as cruel, as hard and brutal as
men smashing at each other with fists, and they then proved their
right to the shining roll of honor, wherever and whatever that roll
may be. They fought on past pain, past sickness, past poisoning, that
man of action and men of the laboratory.

And outside that foul transparent pit the tempo quickened also. The
sledging blows at the last door came quicker. All around the captive
_Peary_ the sleek brown bodies stirred uneasily. For weeks there had
been but little activity inside the submarine; now, all at once, three
of the figures that were men whipped the others into action, rousing
those lying dying on the deck--working, working. Observing this, the
lithe seal bodies moved with new nervous, restless strokes, to and
fro, never pausing--passing up and down in a milling stream the length
of the craft, clustering closest outside the walls of the fourth
compartment, where they pressed as close as they could, their wide
brown eyes already on the haggard forms that worked inside, their
smooth bodies patterned by the constantly shifting shadows of their
fellows above and behind.

So they watched and waited, while in the third compartment the
battered torpoon was slung at the last door, and drawn back, and slung
again--waited for the final moment, the crisis of their month-long
siege beneath the floes of the silent Arctic sea!

* * * * *

Kenneth Torrance worked by himself.

He saw that Sallorsen and Lawson had answered his call; man after man
was