The intense darkness inside the cave made the event a serious one. The wounded polar bear might charge among them at any moment, and as they were all dressed in furs it would be difficult to distinguish each other from the bear.
The bear uttered another terrific roar and charged from the back of the cave. Koku’s war cry was almost as savage, and, knocking the others right and left, he sprang between his beloved master and the wild beast.
Tom, however, did not lose his self-possession. He was a little slow in getting it out, but he produced in time a flashlight, and the ray of it revealed the glaring eyes, the open, dripping jaws, and the blood-bedabbled breast of the big polar bear.
The blinding ray of electric light confused the animal and Koku reached him with several terrific whacks with the staff of his spear.
With one side swipe of its right paw the growling beast tossed the weapon away and drove Koku to his knees. It reached with its left paw to seize the giant, and the curved claws all but caught him.
“Look out!” shrieked Ned. “He’ll have you, sure!”
Koku leaped up, but scarcely escaped the return swing of the bear’s paw. Even the wind of it was enough to send the man to the ice again. With a blood-curdling roar the polar bear flung himself forward on all four paws, and his shaggy breast covered Koku.
It looked as though the faithful servant was done for! His spear stuck a hand’s breadth out of the bear behind its shoulder. The blood poured from that and from the gunshot wound like muddy red bilge being pumped from a ship’s hold.
At this dreadful instant Olaf Karofsen flung away his rifle, drew a great knife from his belt, and leaped for the savagely wagging head of the bear. It seemed as though he gave himself over utterly to the jaws of the beast. The creature’s teeth snapped with a clash of ivory that sounded well nigh as loud as had the rifle shot.
But the gigantic Icelander escaped the jaws. He made a mighty downward thrust with the skinning knife.
The point of it entered the bear’s spine right behind the skull and must have severed the first vertebra. The beast groaned with pain, weaving to and fro on its feet. For the moment all the fight was taken out of the animal. It shuddered and began to sink to the ice.
Uttering a great shout, Tom darted forward and seized Koku’s shoulders. With Captain Karofsen’s help he dragged Koku from under the dying bear. The huge body of the brute sunk slowly upon the very spot where Koku had lain. The giant could not have lived under the dead weight of the mountain of flesh.
Ned had picked up Tom’s torch and now illumined the scene. The two giants were grinning at each other broadly. Tom spoke rather brokenly.
“I declare, boys, that was some fight! I’m proud of you, Koku. And how can I ever thank you, Captain Karofsen?”
The schooner captain was all seriousness again in a moment. He said to Tom:
“We nefer mind dot. The bear, he iss dead. But das snow and ice block us in here. We nefer dig out. We haf no tools.”
Ned had turned the ray of the light upon the mass of broken ice that completely filled the mouth of the cavity into which they had ventured. From the sound of the avalanche when it fell, there could be little doubt but that the mass was rods thick. And the distance and force with which it had fallen had packed the shattered ice so tightly that there could be no hope of finding a passage through it.
“But, say!” exclaimed Kingston, when this fact had been discussed, “don’t you fellows remember that there was a current of air blowing out of this cave when we stood before it? You mentioned that fact, Newton.”
“I noticed it myself,” Tom agreed quickly.
“So did I,” added Ned.
“We haf no feel of de wind now,” observed Captain Karofsen.
“Me look,” cried Koku, who understood fully the situation and its attendant dangers. “If there be hole, I come back and tell Master.”
“Hold on, Koku!” exclaimed Tom Swift. “I know you can pretty well see like a cat in the dark. But I think we had better stick together. We will all go with you on this search for another opening to the cave.”
“Undt leaf das bear? Not even skin him? It is meat. We may need it,” said the schooner captain, in some doubt.
“We have provisions for a week aboard the Winged Arrow,” Tom said lightly.
“And one sure thing,” supplemented Ned. “Nobody will get this bear if we leave it where it lies.”
“But if we do not skin him while das body he iss warm, we haf a pad time doing so,” declared the Icelander.
“I do not think we should bother with the bear,” Tom said slowly. “I am worried about getting back to the seaplane. We may get through this cave and find ourselves far up in these mountains of ice. We will have difficulty in lowering ourselves down into that gorge where the plane is. Don’t bother with this bear. Let us go on.”
“By jinks!” exclaimed Ned. “They say every cloud has a silver lining. It is so blamed dark right now that I cannot see any silver behind this cloud.”
“Cheer up!” cried Tom, his own voice changing with an effort. “Lead ahead, Koku. Give me that torch, Ned. Look out where you step. There may be fissures here, or sink-holes, to fall into. Have a care, Koku.”
“Me have much care, Master,” said the faithful giant. “I feel wind again.” He held up a finger he had wetted. “Yes. Wind come through big ice cave. We find um place to go out. Wait and see.”
“I hope so,” muttered Ned, as he came along in the rear of the small procession.
Farther back in the chamber in the ice was the entrance to a tunnel more than man-high. It was of considerable width, too, and when the party had entered it, almost at once the explorers found that the pitch of the floor was sharply upwards.
The tunnel was by no means straight, twisting around and around, and in places it proved to be open to the sky. There were deep clefts in the ice mountain that exposed the passage to the light of day.
Some of these cuts were deep with snow, for there had already been snow flurries in the Arctic Ocean from which this giant iceberg had drifted.
The explorers became quite hopeful as they pressed on, for it seemed as though finally there must be an exit to the tunnel. They spoke cheerfully together, but were somewhat worried over the fact that Brannigan and his mates would be disturbed by their delayed return.
“They won’t know what to make of the delay,” said Ned.
“But if they heard the avalanche—and of course they did—they may suspect what has happened to us,” Tom remarked. “Hullo! What is it, Koku?”
The giant had halted and put out a restraining hand to stop those behind him. Tom shot the bright ray of the lamp ahead. He saw nothing, for there was a sharp turn in the passage there. They stood silent, waiting. The giant crept forward.
When the man-mountain reached the turn in the wall of ice, he stretched his neck around it. He stood so for so long that Tom went forward, too, making no noise. Almost at once, when he reached Koku’s station, Tom heard a slight noise farther along the tunnel.
“Listen!” he whispered, and held up his hand for silence.
Was it an animal? Perhaps another bear? The young fellow unslung his rifle, for dangerous as it was to fire a weapon amid the towering ice, such another savage beast as that which had previously attacked them could only be met with powder and ball.
Koku flashed his master a quick glance. His wide mouth split his face in a grin. Something amused Koku immensely, but what it was Tom did not at first understand.
The others ventured forward until all stood in a group at the turn of the tunnel. Tom was listening again. The noise was repeated. Suddenly he swung about and slapped his chum on the shoulder.
“Ned,” he whispered hoarsely, “you were saying there was no silver lining to this cloud of trouble! Don’t you believe it! This is its silver lining. Listen!”
As he ceased speaking a hollow voice echoed along the passage:
“Bless the icicles on my mustache, this is the coldest house I ever lived in! The landlord should be prosecuted,” and then the deep, bass laugh of Wakefield Damon reverberated in the ice-cleft.
“What do you know about this!”
“Here in the ice cave!”
“Come on and surprise them!”
At these words all rushed forward.