His brain teemed with the possibilities of the situation as he lay stretched out in the torpoon, waiting. How much would the submarine be smashed? Would the charge of nitromite, besides killing the sealmen, kill everyone inside the _Peary_? For that matter, would it affect the sealmen at all? How much could the creatures stand? And would the firing mechanism work? And then would he himself be able to get out; or would the lock in which the torpoon lay be damaged by the explosion and trap him there? Seconds, only seconds, to wait, small fractions of time--but they were more important than the days and the weeks that the _Peary_ had lain, a lashed-down captive, under the Arctic ice; for in these seconds was to be given fate's final answer to the prayer and courage of them all. Time for Ken expanded. Surely the charge should have gone off long before this! The pulse beat so loudly in his brain that he could hear nothing else. He counted: "... nine, ten, eleven--" Had the fuse failed? Surely by now--"... twelve, thirteen, fourteen--" On that the submarine _Peary_ leaped. Ken Torrance, himself inside the torpoon, felt a sharp roll of thunder made tangible, and then complete darkness took him.... CHAPTER VII _The Awakening_ He had no idea of how long he had been unconscious when, his full senses returning, he eagerly peered ahead through the torpoon's vision-plate. For some seconds he could see nothing; but he knew, at least, that the torpoon had survived the shock, for he was dry and snug in his harness. And then his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, and he saw that he was outside the submarine. Sallorsen had followed his orders; had opened the port-lock! The undersea reaches lay ahead of him, and the way was clear. Ken stared into a gray, silent sea, no longer shadowed with moving brown-skinned bodies. He tried his motors. Their friendly, rhythmic hum answered him, and carefully he slipped into gear and crept up off the sea-floor. He did not dare use his lights. The _Peary_ was a great, blurred shadow, a dead thing without glow or movement, with no figures of sealmen around her. As Ken's eyes gained greater vision, he was able to make out a wide, long rent running clear across the top of the fourth compartment of the submarine. The explosion had done that to her, but what had it done to her crew? What had it done to the sealmen? He saw the sealmen first. Some were quite close, but in the murk he had missed them. Silent specters, they were apparently lifeless, strewn all around at different levels, and most of them floating slowly up toward the dim ice ceiling.