The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN FROZEN FETTERS. } 129 dig in here, or to go for assistance for such a task? “ Ah, but there’s that coffer of gold! He surely won’t desert that. He may believe me dead, but the gold will be worth an effort. “And considering that ice is not a lasting proposition, and that a gale may arise to blow the ice-field off shore again, he will doubtless be in a hurry to get into this old tub as quickly as pos- sible. “So then, what will he do? Why, it’s simple! He'll hurry back to the land, raise the neighbors, and come out here with all the picks and crowbars he can find. They'll set to work on the ice about to-morrow morning, and it will take them pessibly two or three days—work- ing all the time in shifts—to get in here. Meanwhile J shall have nothing to eat, no fire, and—by all that’s holy, how will I breathe? Where’s the air to come from?” This thought started him to his feet. He kicked something that rolled on the deck. It was the steel cap which he had used for a lamp, and the smoldering wick was still in it. Near by he found a small lump of blubber, and, after consider- able trouble, managed to get a light again. Then he looked all around the com- partinent. The weight of the ice had not burst in the heavy timbers and panels of the walls, but the door was, as he knew, blocked. Not a chink was visible. Neither air nor light could enter, and, althought it might have been his im- agination, 1t seemed to him as though the atmosphere was already growing close in the place. Yet it was cold, too. “Tm certainly about as badly off as a man can be and live to get over it,” he muttered. Happening to glance downward as he - set the lamp on the again righted table, he stooped quickly and ran his finger along a wide crack in the cabin deck. The planks were heavy oak, polished by long use. This crack seemed much wider than any others near it. He crept eagerly across the floor and saw where the plank ended. He turned DA in the other direction and found that there was evidently a trapdoor set into the flooring. This fact promised no release for him, but he was interested. He seized the ax, and inserting the edge of the blade in the crack, he pried up the door. It was heavy, but once having got his fingers under it, he was able to lift it free and pitch it over upon the ice. Then he brought the lamp in haste and peered into the compartment now revealed under the flooring of the cabin. The box was only four feet or so deep, and scarcely long enough for a man to lie outstretched on its flooring. There was a shallow chest, which filled more than half the space. “What’s this? More loot of Guth- mund’s?” thought the American. He leaped into the cavity and tried the cover of the chest. It opened easily. The receptacle was about half filled with metal plates, ewers, basins, and drinking mugs. They were so discol- ored that he could not tell of what they were really composed, but at first he thought the material to be copper. A scratch along the edge of a plate with his knife, however, told him his mistake. Like the dish he had already found in the cabin, these articles were all of the heaviest gold! “This beats the other discovery in a walk!’ muttered Feltnar. “Yet of what good is it to me? With a fortune in my hands, I shall die in a few hours for lack of breath. “This was old Guthmund’s plate, I suppose. Rather rudely beaten, but it is worth a fortune. Why, with a share of this wealth I could do a lot of things that I’ve alwavs wanted to. “No more trying to bang natural science into the heads of ‘ young Amer- ica.’ I’d be able to do something that the world would hear of some day. “ And all that the world is likely to hear of me now is that I am dead,” and he groaned and climbed out of the place, placing the trapdoor in its former position. Unable to do anything to alleviate his situation, and feeling tired after all he had gone through, he tore down GORMIGOOO (COL