Chapter 41 Chapter Eighteen

A terrible disaster happened.The large ice floes rushed towards the island!The submerged part of the iceberg is five times deeper than the part above the water. Because it could not withstand the impact of the ocean current under the water, it was broken apart by the impact, causing the ice to scatter and landed on Victoria Island in large numbers. Driven by this force, the island quickly drifted southward. The falling iceberg first crushed the kennel, the deer pen and the main house. When Mike Knapp and his companions heard the terrible sound, they ran out of the house in a hurry.Disaster happened in the blink of an eye.There was no trace of the house that had been crushed into the ground by the ice.Now, the island and its inhabitants have fallen into the abyss of the ocean!But brave Paulina Barnett, Madge, an Eskimo girl and an astronomer who fell into the iceberg may still be alive!They must be found, if only their corpses.

Lieutenant Hobson, who was very depressed at first, regained his usual composure and shouted: "Bring a shovel and a pick! The house is strong enough to hold it, and we'll get to work right away!" Tools and picks are available.But now no one can approach the courtyard.Because the ice is still falling from the iceberg and piled up, in some places it is as high as 200 feet.The sheer force of the ice coming from the northern horizon is truly astounding.The stretch of coast between former Bathurst Point and Cape Eskimo is completely overwhelmed by this active iceberg.The iceberg penetrated with irresistible force to the interior of the island, a quarter of a mile from the shore.Every moment, people felt the ground shaking, followed by a loud bang, and another huge ice fell down.What people are most worried about is that the small island will sink into the sea under such a heavy pressure. Obviously, the entire coast here is gradually sinking, and the sea water is invading in large swaths, all the way to the lagoon.

The situation in front of people was extremely serious, and they couldn't do any work of rescuing their companions all night long, because they couldn't resist the attack of the iceberg avalanche, they couldn't approach the yard at all, they couldn't get around the difficulties in front of them, they could only wait, which made them unable to help into a desperate situation. Finally, it was daylight.What a change had taken place about Bathurst Point!Looking forward, the horizon is completely covered by an ice barrier.Fortunately, however, the iceberg has stopped moving forward for the time being, and only a few ice blocks sometimes fall from the top of the iceberg that is not firmly established.At this time, the bottom of the iceberg, which is deep into the sea, is pushing the island forward with all its strength under the action of the ocean current, causing the island to drift quickly to the south and to the depths of the ocean.

But the people on the island don't know about it.Because they are preparing to save people.Among those in need was that brave, beloved woman.Now is the time to act.They've got access to the yard and they have to work against the clock.Because the victims had been buried below for 6 hours. We have already said that Bathurst Point is gone.Under the pressure of the iceberg, the cape turned upside down and landed on the commercial station, crushing the ships and burying the kennels and deer pens in the ground.Then a block of ice fifty or sixty feet high pushed the main house under the sand and dirt.The yard of the commercial station is full of ice and gravel.Not a single post of the fence was to be seen.How hard it is to find the victims under this mass of ice and gravel!

Before going to the rescue, the lieutenant called the master carpenter to his side. "Mike Knapp," he asked, "do you think the house can withstand the pressure of this collapsing iceberg?" "I think so, Lieutenant," replied Mike Knapp, "I'm even sure of that. You know, we reinforced the house. Especially the roof was reinforced, and we added Pillars, the house can hold up. And the house is first surrounded by a layer of sand, which will soften the impact of the ice on it." "I hope you're right, Mike Knapp!" Lieutenant Hobson said to him, "and I hope there's time to get them out!"

Then he called Madame Jolliffe. "Ma'am," he asked, "is there food in the house?" "Yes, Mr. Jasper," replied Madame Jolliffe, "there are some tinned goods in the house and in the kitchen." "Is there any water?" "Water and brandy," replied Madame Jollive. "Very well," said Lieutenant Hobson, "then they won't die of thirst, and they won't die of starvation! But won't they be starved of oxygen?" A master carpenter cannot answer this question.That is, the house can withstand the pressure, but the lack of air is the greatest danger for the victims.To get rid of this danger, they must be rescued as soon as possible, or at least a passage can be opened as soon as possible so that the house can have a vent to the outside.

All people, men and women, took shovels and picks and threw themselves into the work of rescue.Everyone risked landslides and kept moving sand, soil and ice.Mike Knapp directed everyone and started the excavation work step by step. He believes that it is more appropriate to dig from the top.In this way, people can push down a large amount of accumulated sand, stone and ice from above, and let them roll all the way to the edge of the lagoon.Smaller ice cubes can be pushed down with little effort by people using picks and crowbars, while large ice cubes must be smashed with a pick before they can be pushed.For those extra large ice cubes, they first burn them with branches to roast them before processing them.They did everything possible to remove the accumulated ice in the shortest possible time.

But the accumulated iceberg was quite large, and though these brave men worked without rest, resting only at mealtimes, it did not seem much smaller when the sun sank below the horizon.After all, they had flattened the top of the iceberg a bit.Everyone decided to continue working at night; when the top was leveled and there was no need to worry about it collapsing, the master carpenter decided to dig a shaft through the thick ice, so that he could reach the place where the murdered people stayed more directly and quickly. so that there can be connected with the air on the ground. In this way, Lieutenant Hobson and his companions cleared obstacles all night.Under the attack of iron and fire, people continue to wage war on the ice.The men kept wielding shovels and picks, while the women continued to roast large blocks of ice.Everyone has only one thought: get Mrs Barnet, March, Karuma and Thomas Black out as fast as possible!

When the dawn of the next day came, the victims had been buried underground for 30 hours, and the air there was extremely thin. After finishing the night's work, the master carpenter thought it time to start the shaft, which should lead directly to the roof below.According to his calculations, the well would not be less than fifty feet deep.The ice was about 20 feet in length, and it was not difficult to dig above, but it was much more difficult to dig in the sand below, which was soft and prone to collapse, requiring constant log support at a depth of 30 feet.For this purpose, people prepared a lot of wooden pillars, wooden slats, and the work of digging wells began.Since the working face can only accommodate 3 people, the soldiers went down to dig in shifts, so as to make the progress as fast as possible.

The conditions were so dire that the moods of these unfortunate people on the ground often fluctuated between hope and disappointment.Whenever they encounter difficulties, such as a landslide that destroys part of their labor, they become very frustrated. At this time, people will hear the firm voice of the master carpenter and they will regain their courage.While the men were digging, the three women, Ray, Jolliff, and Mike Knapp's wife, waited anxiously at the foot of a knoll, saying little and praying now and then.There they light a fire and cook while the men use their breaks to wolf down a quick meal.

However, although drilling the well is not difficult, it is not fast because of the extremely hard ice below.At the end of the day, only the sand layer was reached, and it seemed that Mike Knapp could not hope to get through in another day. Night has fallen.Excavation work continues.People lit Akiko Pine to continue the night battle.At the same time, people hurriedly dug an igloo on the ice mound by the coast for women and children to live in.At this time, the wind direction changed to the southeast, and it began to rain, and sometimes the wind was strong, which made people feel a chill immediately.Neither Lieutenant Hobson nor his companions wanted to interrupt the excavation. At this time a new difficulty arose.It is difficult for people to excavate in this kind of sandy soil layer that often collapses and flows.People have to block wooden boards on the well wall to fix the moving silt, and then stand at the mouth of the well and use ropes to lower the buckets and then lift the buckets of soil up and down.This slows down the progress of the work, and there is still the danger of landslides at any time, so we must be very careful, otherwise even the diggers may be buried. The master carpenter often drills into the tunnel to direct the excavation. He taps the bottom surface with a pick from time to time to test whether he has encountered an obstacle, which proves that he has reached the roof. Thus, the next morning, they had only dug 10 feet down the sand layer, and had the roof not continued to sag, they would still have 20 feet to dig there. By this time, Mrs Barnett, two other women and the astronomer had been buried below for 54 hours. Several times the Lieutenant and Mike Knapp wondered whether the castaways below were trying or had tried to open a passage out of them, as it was commonly known.Undoubtedly, Pauline Barnett, with her stoic will and level head, would try to open a passage to the outside world if she could move freely.Some tools were left in the buried house, and the master carpenter and another man named Kelley remembered leaving a shovel in the kitchen.Could they have broken a door and dug their way out in the sand?But for this tunnel, they can only dig horizontally, which is a much more difficult job than Mike Knapp's shaft, because the height of the accumulation caused by the collapse of the ice is only about 60 feet, and the occupied The area is 500 feet in diameter.The people below must not understand this situation. If they can dig a tunnel horizontally and go straight through the uppermost ice shell, it will take at least 8 days.In this way, even if there is no problem with the food, the air inside will not allow them to persist for such a long time. At this time, Hobson himself was always observing the movement of every place here, listening carefully to whether there was any sound of excavation underground.But he heard nothing. After the arrival of a new day, everyone puts more effort into this hard work.People continuously lift up the excavated sand from the wellhead, and then use wood to support the well wall to fix the sand, so that the work of digging the well can be carried out normally.Occasionally, landslides can be blocked immediately.For the whole day, the work went smoothly and no mishaps occurred.Only soldier Gary was hit on the head by falling ice, but the wound was not serious, and he insisted on continuing to work. At 4 o'clock the shaft had been dug to a depth of 50 feet, 20 feet in the ice and 30 feet in the sand. Mike Knapp had calculated that the top of the house could be reached at this depth if the roof could withstand the pressure of the avalanche. At this time, he went down to the bottom of the well and dug down with the pickaxe, but for some reason he couldn't touch anything hard. His frustration can be imagined. He stood there with his arms folded looking at Sabine, who was standing beside him. "Nothing?" the hunter asked him. "No," replied the carpenter, "no, we'll have to keep digging. The roof may be bent, but the attic floor can't hold up! Dig another ten feet and we should be able to touch the floor." ……or……" Mike Knapp didn't go on, and Sabine and him got on with it again. At 6 p.m., another 10 to 12 feet had been dug. Mark Knapp tried again.Still hit nothing.It was still quicksand that his pickaxe hit. "What a pity!" he murmured to himself. Then, he climbed up to the mouth of the well by climbing the horizontal supports one by one in the well. He saw Lieutenant Hobson and the sergeant look even more disturbed than himself, and he took them aside to tell them the sad news he had just learned down the shaft. "So," asked Jasper Hobson, "so the house was crushed by a collapsing iceberg, and those unfortunate..." "No!" replied the master carpenter with unshakable conviction, "No! The house will not be crushed! It is impossible!" "Then what happened, Mike Knapp?" asked the Lieutenant, with tears streaming from his eyes. "Well, obviously," replied Mike Knapp, master carpenter, "the house held up, but the ground beneath the house gave way, and the house sank with it! It went through the ice shell under the island! It didn't To be crushed, but to sink below... what a misfortune..." "Did you drown?!" Sergeant Lang shouted. "Yes! Sergeant! They went overboard before they could move! They sank like passengers on a sinking ship!" The three of them stood still for a moment without saying a word.Mike Knapp's hypothesis seems close to reality.The idea of ​​a house sinking through the ice shell under pressure is logical, since the interior of the house is supported by strong pillars that would crush the ice and sink into the sea. "So, Mike Knapp," said Lieutenant Hobson, "if we don't get them out alive..." "Yes," continued the master carpenter, "that is, they must be found even if they are dead!" Having said this, Mike Knapp went back to work at the bottom of the well.Lieutenant Hobson went down with him. All night the digging continued, the men taking turns every hour, during which time Mac Knapp and Lieutenant Hobson sat on the cross-brace posts while the two soldiers dug the sand. At 3 a.m., Cayley's pick suddenly hit a hard object, making a cracking sound.At the same time, the master carpenter didn't hear it, but felt it. "We got it," the soldier shouted, "they're saved!" "Don't yell, keep digging!" Lieutenant Hobson ordered in a low voice. By this time, the house had sunk for 6 hours. Gloria and his comrade Pound dug again, and the depth of the well had almost reached the sea level. Therefore, there was no hope in Mike Knapp's heart. Twenty minutes later, the hard object that the pickaxe had struck revealed itself to be a rafter in the roof.Immediately the carpenter jumped down, picked up a shovel and shoveled it up so quickly that all the slats were blown away.After a while, a big hole was dug in the roof... At the mouth of the cave, an unrecognizable face appeared in the darkness. It's Karuma! "Save us! Save us!" moaned the poor Eskimo girl in a weak voice. Jasper Hobson immediately slid down the hole.A biting cold air rushed to his face and immediately spread through his whole body, and the water flooded to his waist.Unexpectedly, the roof was intact. Just as Mike Knapp guessed, the house was pressed through the soil and sank, and the sea flooded in.However, the seawater did not flood the attic, and only flooded to less than 1 foot above the floor. It seems that there is still hope for rescue! Fumbling forward in the darkness, the lieutenant came across a motionless body, which he dragged to the opening, where Pound and Gloria grabbed hold and dragged it up.It was Thomas Blake. Another victim was carried up, it was Maqi.People kept dropping ropes down from the wellhead, and Blake and Maggie were pulled up, and they gradually regained consciousness after breathing fresh air outside the wellhead. And Paulina Barnett was not rescued.Under the guidance of Karuma, Hobson went all the way to the end of the attic, where he finally found Mrs. Barnet, lying there motionless, her head just above the water.The female traveler looked dead. Lieutenant Hobson gently picked her up and came to the mouth of the well. After a while, he, Mrs. Barnett, Karuma and Mike Knapp all went up to the mouth of the well. Around this brave woman gathered all her companions, too sad to speak a word. Although the Eskimo girl is very weak, she still can't help throwing herself on her good friend. Paulina Barnett was still breathing, her heart was still beating.The fresh air gradually entered her shrunken lungs, and added vitality to her life.Finally, she finally opened her eyes. There was a shout of joy in unanimous excitement, a cry of gratitude that soared to the sky, sure to be heard by God. The sky gradually brightened, the sun burst out from the horizon, and the morning glow all over the sky dyed the earth red. Lady Paulina Barnett stood up with all her strength.She overlooked the entire island from the top of the hill formed by the collapse of the iceberg, and then said in a strange tone: "Sea! Sea!" Sure enough, on the east and west sides of the horizon, the sea has broken free from the ice floes and surrounded the entire floating island!