for two manholes in the top for the rowers.
Perpheela, the guide, signalled Ledyard to embark; and before the white
man could solve the problem of how three men were to sit in two
manholes, he was seized head and heels, and bundled clear through a
manhole, lying full length imprisoned like Jonah in the whale. Then
the swish of dipping paddles, of the cold waves above and beneath, shut
out by parchment thin as tissue paper, told Ledyard that he was being
carried out to sea, spite of dark and storm, {250} in a craft light as
an air-blown bladder, that bounced forward, through, under, over the
waves, undrownable as a fish.

There was nothing to do but lie still. The slightest motion might have
ruptured the thin skin keel. On he was borne through the dark, the
first American in history to travel by a submarine. At the end of what
seemed ages--it could not have been more than two hours--after a deal
of bouncing to the rising storm with no sound but the whistling of wind
and rush of mountain seas, the keel suddenly grated pebbles. Starlight
came through the vacated manholes; but before Ledyard could jump out,
the boat was hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and carried on a run
overland. The creak of a door slammed open. A bump as the boat dumped
down to soft floor; and Ledyard was dazzled by a glare of light to find
himself in the mess room of the Russian barracks on Captain Harbor, in
the presence of two bearded Russian hunters gasping speechless with
surprise to see a man emerging from the manhole like a newly hatched
chicken from an egg.

Fur rugs covered the floor, the walls, the benches, the berth beds
lining the sides of the barnlike Russian barracks. The windows were of
oiled bladder skin; the lamps, whale-oil in stone basins with skin for
wick. Arms were stacked in the corner. The two Russians had been
sitting down to a supper of boiled salmon, when Ledyard made his
unannounced {251} entrance. By signs he explained that Captain Cook's
ships were at a near harbor and that the English commander desired to
confer with Ismyloff, chief factor of the Russians. Rising, kissing
their hands ceremoniously as they mentioned the august name and taking
off their fur caps, the Russians made solemn answer that all these
parts, with a circumambient wave, belonged to the Empress of Russia;
that they were her subjects--with more kissing of the hands. Russia
did not want foreigners spying on her hunting-grounds. Nevert