"Yes," rejoined the officer, rapidly skimming over the further pages of the log, "and they estimated the stuff roughly at about five hundred thousand dollars' worth of exceptional quality." "How did the ship get frozen in the ice?" asked Hiram. "The Viking ship, I mean." "Who can tell," returned the ensign. "I have heard of such things at the North Pole. Several explorers have even brought back fragments of the Norseman's lost craft; but I never heard of such an occurrence transpiring in the Antarctic regions. But let's read on." The log continued to tell of hardships encountered in beating back around the Horn with the valuable cargo; of discontent of the crew; of their constant demand to have the hoard divided equally among the officers and men, and of the captain's refusal to accede to their requests. Finally the entries began to grow short and disconnected, as if whoever was writing up the log was on constant watch and had little time to spare. Indeed, one entry read: "Mutiny threatens constantly. The men mean to seize the ivory and take to the boats." Following that no entries were made for several days. Then came a startling announcement, both in its brevity and suggestiveness of tragedy. CHAPTER V. A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST "'What I dreaded has come to pass,'" read out the ensign; "'the men mutinied, but thanks be to Providence, we are safe. But a fearful catastrophe overtook the misguided fellows. Short handed as we were, having lost ten hands by scurvy and drowning in the South Seas, the crew mustered but eight men. Thus, with my two officers, we were three against them. The attack came at midnight on July 27th, 1883. Luckily we were on the watch, and as the men came aft we met them with firearms. Four went down at the first volley. Three died shortly, the other the next day. "'The remainder fled, but before I could stop them my officers had shot down three, leaving only the cook alive. I saved his life. But as we were examining the injured, one of them whipped out a knife and killed my first officer. The next day we buried the dead and worked the ship as best we could with three hands. Luckily the breeze was light, for in a brisk blow we could not have handled the ship. "'Finding ourselves off the coast of the Carolinas, and despairing of navigating the ship to port, we ran in and anchored off a small desolate island. On it grew a few scrub trees, but not much else. After a consultation we decided to abandon the ship; but first we agreed, while the weather was fair, to bury the ivory on one of the islands. It was a long, tedious task, but at last it was done, and the spot where it had been secreted, marked.