Chapter XVII: Into Unknown Seas

"Get below!" shouted Scarface, as the rattle of the Miami's machine gun started, and the leaden hail began splashing about the stern of his fleeing Viking ship. "I'll steer until they get me, damn them, then Swede can take the oar--one by one, as long as there are any of us left."

"And not fight back, chief?" exclaimed Swede in surprise.

Helga said something in Norse to her girl cousin, and then to Swede.

"She says," translated the latter, "that Borghild and she can take turns at steering, so we two men can use the rifles."

"Fair enough!" agreed Scarface. "Let's go!"

And soon Borghild Hoglund was clinging to the long oar which passed through the ring in the stern, while Helga and the two gangsters were lying on the deck beside her, the men discharging clip after clip at the oncoming Miami. It must have taken considerable courage for Borghild to expose herself thus, while her companions lay in comparative safety; but it was necessary; and she was a Viking.

The stream of bullets from the machine gun found the stern of the barge, and rose slowly toward its four occupants. Borghild shrank involuntarily at her oar, but the two riflemen kept coolly at their work. Although their Springfields slightly outranged the 30-caliber machine bow gun, yet Cicero and Friday had the advantage of being able to play their weapon like a hose. Once let them get completely within range, and the annihilation of the fugitives would be sudden and complete.

A stray soaring shot nicked Borghild, and she toppled. Disregarding the pursuing bullets, Jimmy sprang to his feet and caught the falling body in his arms, while Helga manned the oar, and Swede kept up his fire.

The rattle of the machine gun stopped, as Friday dropped, wounded, to the deck of the Miami. But Altoonah took the wheel, and Nick Fratelli, in person, stepped on deck to assist Cicero with the deadly weapon.

"Get him, Swede! Get the Rat!" urged Scarface, as he lowered Borghild to the deck and frantically searched for her wound.

_Tat-tat-tat-tat!_ began the machine gun--then stopped abruptly, as Cicero Tony clapped his hand to his chest and staggered backward, falling in a heap on the Miami's deck.

"I tank I vinged his sore shoulder," grinned Swede.

But it was soon evident that Cicero was merely incapacitated as a machine gunner, rather than put out of business. Fratelli assisted him into the pilot-house, and then emerged with Altoonah (crutches and all), whom he seemed to be frantically instructing how to feed the piece.

At this moment Borghild came to her senses. She had been shot through the calf of one leg, and had merely fainted. Helga peremptorily sent her below to relieve Terry in caring for Nils. When Terry came on deck, Helga dropped prone on the deck and picked up the rifle which Scarface had been using.

_Tat-tat-tat!_ went the machine gun again.

_Crack!_ spoke Helga's rifle.

Swede and Altoonah rolled on their respective decks, each clutching at his throat.

"Dey got me, I tank," groaned Johnson hoarsely, then coughed up some blood.

Helga dropped her rifle, and took the wounded man's head in her lap. He smiled at her and patted one of her arms with his hand.

"Lady," said he, "I tank I vorship you."

Then a paroxysm of bloody coughing ensued, his body stiffened, then went limp.

The Norse princess lowered his head softly to the deck; and, with fire in her eye, picked up her rifle again.

"Viking!" she announced proudly.

* * * * *

Nick Fratelli had disappeared, Scarface and Helga kept up a steady fire on the windows of the pilot-house of the Miami, but that craft continued to overhaul them. In spite of the fact that Scarface now had two available riflemen to the Miami's one, yet if the Miami once got alongside, its squad of Skraelings could undoubtedly board them and overpower them by sheer weight of numbers; and this quite evidently was Nick Fratelli's plan.

With Swede Johnson dead, further communication between the Americans and the Vikings on board the Norse ship was rendered impossible.

"I'm going up in the bow," explained Scarface to Terry, "so as to prevent their landing there."

Then he left. Helga started to follow him, but he motioned her back. She flashed him a look of supreme contempt. Leaving two women to protect him, was he, while he took to cover? But when the Miami ranged alongside, and he opened fire from his new position, she understood, and was ashamed of having doubted him.

The Miami was now directly opposite them on the port side, and began slowly to draw in closer. Yet still not a head showed anywhere, for fear of Jimmy's and Helga's marksmanship.

Scarface caught sight of Nick's face in a mirror hanging in the pilot-house of the Miami, and instantly shattered the glass with a bullet. Fratelli had quite evidently been using that mirror to steer by, and his task would from now on be rendered more difficult.

And then a new and unmistakable note was heard in the chugging of the Miami's motors. Jimmy cocked his ears, and then nearly laughed aloud.

"Keep it up, Terry," he shouted. "They're out of gas!"

Terry nodded, and clutched her oar tighter. But Fratelli also suddenly realized the situation, and swinging his helm sharply, attempted to bear directly down on them. It looked as though he were going to make it, although his engines were now coughing and missing. The engines stopped, but the Miami had sufficient steerage-way to carry her bow squarely into the stern of the dragon ship, unless something happened to prevent.

Shooting a whole clip into the windows of the pilot-house, Scarface reloaded and hurried aft; while on board the Miami, the Skraelings surged on deck and opened fire--quite aimlessly, however.

"Starboard your helm!" shouted Scarface.

"How?" shouted back bewildered little Terry.

"That way! Push your oar that way! Hard!"

Theresa obeyed, with every ounce of strength that was in her, and the stern of the Norse ship swung suddenly to port out of the path of the oncoming Miami, just in time.

As the Miami swept by under their stern, Scarface arrived on the run beside Terry and Helga.

"Straighten her up again," he shouted, but Terry needed no command, for the steering-oar swung around of its own accord in hands too tired to prevent, and the ship under the influence of the wind automatically resumed its earlier course. Scarface dropped on one knee and let the Skraelings have a full clip, whereupon they broke and crowded back into the cabin of the Miami.

"We've won!" Scarface shouted. "Licked 'em to a frazzle!"

But Terry interrupted with, "Gee, Mr. Jimmy, look!"

He looked. The Miami had swung around again, so that its bow was pointing toward them, and its inertia was still carrying it in their wake. Nick Fratelli and Cicero Tony Schultz were at the machine gun, and still well within range.

"Duck!" shouted Scarface, grabbing both girls and dragging them with him into the hold, just as the gun let loose.

* * * * *

The bullets pattered on the stern, and tore through the planking, but those in the hold of the Viking barge piled up sleeping mats and crawled behind them before any harm had been done.

"A narrow escape!" breathed Scarface Jimmy. "Now all we've got to do is lie low until the wind pulls us away from them. But, if we had only seen those two before they got to the gun, it would have been a different story. Too bad!"

Presently the patter of the bullets ceased, and then the _tat-tat-tat!_ of the machine gun itself ceased too. They were out of range at last, and Nick the Rat knew it.

The young Nils was feeling much better. Although he had chafed at being out of the fight, his cockiness had been completely destroyed by the fatal outcome of his venture; and so, being weaponless, he had made no attempt to come on deck during the recent battle. Helga dressed Borghild's wound, and then she and the two Americans laid out all the remaining bodies, including poor Swede's.

As they were completing this sad task, Theresa remarked, "It must be nearly night; see how dark it's getting."

But it was not the darkness of night, for night never comes within the earth. Instead, it was an impending storm. Drops of rain began to fall, and they could hear the wind howling overhead, as it swept by in the higher strata at even a faster rate than it was blowing on the surface of the sea.

"_Komm!_" ordered Helga, as she led them forward to the mast, and indicated that the sail must be lowered at once.

But not clear down, for they must have steerage-way, to keep them heading with the wind, and thus avoid getting broadside to the waves, and foundering. Accordingly they furled the gaudily striped sail down to the lowest reef.

Meanwhile the day grew blacker and blacker, the nearest thing to actual night which the Americans had seen since entering the interior of the earth. The wind was now from the north; rain fell in slanting torrents, while the Viking barge scudded along before the fury of the blast, with the Norse bishop, the two Norse women, little Terry, and Scarface Boston Jimmy taking turns, two by two at the steering-oar.

They spoke little during that storm, partly because Fate, in removing Swede Johnson, had removed the only bridge which spanned the linguistic gulf between the three Vikings and the two Americans, but mostly because they were too busy and because the roar of the wind and the rain drowned out their voices.

* * * * *

How long the storm continued will never be known. Shift after shift, they all labored to hold the ship with the veering wind. Drenched, chilled, exhausted, they labored on. It all seemed like a nightmare, an unending treadmill. Of the five, the three Vikings stood it the best, for they were used to timeless time.

When it became evident that the storm was to continue indefinitely, they reluctantly heaved all the bodies overboard, Bishop Nils reciting the liturgy for death at sea. And, after all, what burial could be more fitting for these brave seafarers than to be sent to the bottom of the ocean amid wind and driving rain?

While, two by two, they clung to the straining stern-oar, the members of the party who were temporarily off duty, ate, or tried to dry themselves, or dozed fitfully. As shift dragged after shift, they devoted more time to dozing, until finally everything degenerated into a weary round of steering, dropping exhausted to the deck, stupor, and being awakened to steer again.

The one and only redeeming feature was that there is nothing better for wounds than rain. Ask the men who have been left outside of emergency dressing stations in France, so hopelessly wounded that men with lesser injuries, men whom there was hope of saving, were treated first. Yet some of those who were given up have been miraculously kept alive, their wounds dressed by a timely downpour. They know!

At last the five voyagers completely lost awareness of events.

Presumably they continued their cycle of duty as in a trance, but this can never be known. Scarface afterward remembered the round of steering and sleeping; then came an absolute blank. And then--

Swimming in the angry surges!

He did not even remember the boat crashing. Merely that he woke up to find himself struggling in the surf. And still the black, black night of storm.

A wave hurled Scarface against a rock, stunning him. But he managed to crawl upon the rock and hold on. It was small, scarcely five feet across, and every wave washed over it; but it was rough, and so afforded a hand-hold and a foothold.

Then the darkness grew lighter. The rain ceased, although the wind still drove on. Looking back into the teeth of the gale, Scarface saw a woman's body floating directly toward his rock, with her golden hair spread out like seaweed awash.

In an instant, he had plunged into the water to windward, to intercept the body and prevent its dashing against the rock. As he staggered back, beaten by the waves, with the body in his arms, he saw that it was Borghild.

There was no sign anywhere of Nils, Helga, or Terry.

A few splintered boards, floating by, were the only relics of the Viking ship.