“Nick,” said Gale suddenly, “what would you think of _us_ trying to go through that tunnel?” I gave a great spasmodic shudder. “Don’t! I have already thought of it,” I managed to say. “It makes me ill!” “But I mean it, Nick,” persisted Gale. “There can’t be more than a hundred and fifty miles of it, and it’s not so much colder inside than it is here. We’ve got our electric lamp ahead, and we could make it in seven or eight hours, the way we are going. If we can hit the tide right we might do it as easy as nothing. If we did, we’d be home for dinner. If we didn’t—well, Nick, to talk right out in meeting, I don’t believe we’d have a bit more chance of getting home the other way, and a good deal longer misery before—before we quit trying. Ain’t that so, now? What do you think, Bill?” Neither of us could reply immediately. The thought had lurked in the minds of all, but when put into words it was a bit staggering. Yet the prospect of being, within a few hours, on the Billowcrest with Edith—for dinner, as her father put it—started the warm blood once more in my veins. Perhaps the latter appealed to Mr. Sturritt also. “I—I—that is—I’m with—er—the Admiral,” he managed to say at last, “as usual.” “And so am I,” I agreed. “We can only die once wherever we are, and it is better to take the chances where we will go all together, in a minute, and be carried somewhere near our friends, than to perish lingeringly one after another, away off up yonder in the snow.” “That’s my ticket!” assented Gale. “And anyway, our boat, some of it, will get through, with all these air-tight compartments, and we can put some messages in each one, so if any pieces are picked up the folks will know what became of us.” We began doing this at once, for we felt that the entrance to the dark tunnel could not be far distant. The walls on either side were becoming very high, and in places drew inward alarmingly. The river was narrowing too, and was much swifter. “We couldn’t get up, now, if we wanted to,” commented Gale, presently, “and say, Nick, there’s a bend just ahead.” But it was not a bend. The walls bent, truly, but they bent inward, and far above they joined. Below was a depth of blackness into which our eyes could pierce but a little way. It was the “Passage of the Dead!” We hastily slackened our speed to consider a little. Gale was making a calculation. “It’s now ten o’clock,” he said, at last, “and as nearly as I can figure, the tide ought to be about half down in Bottle Bay. It’ll be low tide at—say one o’clock, and high tide again about seven, unless the wind’s blowing in there. That would bring the tide up earlier. What we want to do, Nick, is not to waste a minute, so’s to get there if we can before the tide closes the entrance again.” “Why run that risk?” I shivered. “Why not figure to get there at low tide?”