The night arrived, and the living room lamp began to fade into this oxygen-poor atmosphere.
At 8 PM they made the final preparations. The rifles were carefully loaded and dug a hole in the vault of the snow house.
Bell had been working with great skill for a few minutes when Johnson, leaving the bedroom where he stood guard, quickly returned to his companions.
He seemed nervous.
Hatteras: What happened?
Johnson: What to happen! Nothing! And still!
Altamont: But what's happening?
Johnson: Silence! Do you not hear a strange noise?
Bell: From which part?
Johnson: From there! Something is happening in the room's wall.
Bell suspended his work; everyone was listening.
A distant noise was heard in the side wall; obviously a hole was being dug in the ice.
Johnson: Someone is scratching!
Altamont: No doubt.
Bell: The bears?
Altamont: Yes, the bears!
Johnson: They changed the tactic. They gave up on suffocating us!
Altamont: Or they believe we've suffocated!
Bell: We'll be attacked.
Hatteras: Well, we'll fight at close quarters.
Altamont: Thousand damns! It's better this way! I'm already sick of these invisible enemies! We'll see and fight each other!
Johnson: Yes, but without firearms; it's impossible in such a cramped space.
Altamont: Fine, with the axe! With the knife!
The noise was increasing; the scratches were very clear, the bears had attacked the wall at the very angle it was making with the snowy slope resting on the rock.
Johnson: The animal that digs is less than six feet from us!
Altamont: You're right, Johnson, but we got the time to prepare ourselves to receive him properly!
The American took his axe in one hand and his knife in the other; leaning on his right leg, his body slightly back, he sat in the attacking position. Hatteras and Bell imitated him. Johnson prepared his weapon in case it was necessary to use it.
The noise grew louder and louder; the torn ice cracked under the violence of the claw blows.
Finally, just a thin crust separated them from their adversary; suddenly, this crust crumbled like a circle paper broken by a clown and a black body.
Altamont immediately pointed his arm towards the adversary.
???: Stop! In the name of God!
Johnson: The doctor! The doctor!
It was the doctor, indeed, who, pulled by his own weight, rolled into the middle of the room.
Clawbonny: Good day, my dear friends!
His comrades were astonished, but this astonishment was followed by joy; each of them wanted to embrace the doctor.
Hatteras, very excited, hugged him for a long time. The doctor answered with a warm handshake.
YOU ARE READING
Jules Verne's Captain Hatteras - Part 2: Ice Desert
General FictionAbandoned in a field of ice, Hatteras and his remaining men must work together to survive long enough to see their dear country again!
