They were just as much prisoners of the ice now as they had been when first the _Snowbird_ had settled upon this ledge in the crevasse. And now they lost hope. There seemed no possibility of their escaping from the gulf by cutting their way out. CHAPTER XIX A NIGHT ATTACK It was the aged scientist who again put heart in the party when Andy Sudds and Phineas Roebach brought back the report of this catastrophe. "We must not give up hope," declared Professor Henderson, cheerfully. "We have lost what work has been done on the ice-wall, it is true. But we can begin again." "And of what use will that be?" demanded Mark Sampson. "The sun will melt away the ladder again." "We have many more hours of night here than we have of daylight--you can all see that, eh?" said the professor. "The sun seemed to shine on us not more than six hours," admitted Jack. "Less than that, I believe. The rays were not hot more than four and a half hours. If we begin our work of cutting steps the moment the heat of the short day departs, we will be able, I am convinced, to get to the top of the ice cliff." "You're wrong, Professor," said Roebach. "This ice is spongy even now--at least, a good deal of it is. We can't make secure footholds in that wall. We're beaten, I tell you--beaten!" "No. Only balked in one way. There are other means of escape," declared Professor Henderson. "I'd be glad to have you tell us what those means are," cried the oil man. "I've racked my brains to think of some other way of getting out. I'm beaten, I tell you!" "We will not give up so easily," insisted Professor Henderson. "There is no sense in that. We must struggle on. Wait until this fog is dissipated. It will soon rise, for the air is becoming extremely cold and the fog cannot long endure the frost." They were indeed suffering much from the increasing cold. The change--and so sudden a change--from the tropical heat of the short day to the bitter cold of this ice-gulf was hard to bear. The fog thinned perceptibly three hours after the sun had set. Meanwhile all but Jack and Washington White had piled up in the cabin for some much-needed sleep. Jack's wounded hand would not let him rest, so he offered to keep watch, while the black man had been reposing most of the time in which Andy and the oil man had dug so strenuously at the cliff. "Disher proves, Massa Jack, how contrariwise disher world do go," Wash grunted. "Here we starts out ter hunt fo' dat Dr. Todd's chrysomela bypunktater plant, an' we don't find it, but nothin' but trouble--lashin's ob trouble! I'se nigh erbout descouraged ober de perfesser. He suah do lead us all inter sech tribbilations. I done lose heart 'bout him." "Oh, I wouldn't," said Jack. "The professor can't help it if an old volcano comes along and blows us off the earth. You can't really blame him for that, Wash."