indicated a
disposition on his part to send her, and all others fashioned after her
plan, to depths a great deal lower than ever had been contemplated by
their inventors. Still, as he wanted very much to go to the pole if it
was possible that he could get there, and as the wages offered him were
exceedingly liberal, Captain Jim enlisted, in the party. His duties
were to begin when the Dipsey floated on the surface of the sea like a
commonsense craft.

A day or two before the expedition was ready to start, Roland Clewe was
very much surprised one morning by a visit from Sammy's wife, Mrs. Sarah
Block, who lost no time in informing him that she had made up her mind
to accompany her husband on the perilous voyage he was about to make.

"You!" said Clewe. "You could not go on such an expedition as that!"

"If Sammy goes, I go," said Mrs. Block. "If it is dangerous for me, it
is dangerous for him. I have been tryin' to get sense enough in his head
to make him stay at home, but I can't do it; so I have made up my mind
that I go with him or he don't go. We have travelled together on top
of the land, and we have travelled together on top of the water, and if
there's to be travellin' under the water, why then we travel together
all the same. If Sammy goes polin', I go polin'. I think he's a fool to
do it; but if he's goin' to be a fool, I am goin' to be a fool. And as
for my bein' in the way, you needn't think of that, Mr. Clewe. I can
cook for the livin', I can take care of the sick, and I can sew up the
dead in shrouds."

"All right, Mrs. Block," said Clewe. "If you insist on it, and Sammy is
willing, you may go; but I will beg of you not to say anything about the
third class of good offices which you propose to perform for the party,
for it might cast a gloom over some of the weaker-minded."

"Cast a gloom!" said Mrs. Block. "If all I hear is true, there will be
a general gloom over everything that will be like havin' a black
pocket-handkercher tied over your head, and I don't know that anything I
could say would make that gloom more gloomier."

When Margaret Raleigh parted with Clewe on the deck of the Go Lightly,
the large electric vessel which was to tow the Dipsey up to the limits
of navigable Northern waters, she knew he must make a long journey,
nearly twice as far as the voyage to England, before she could hear
from him; but when he arrived at Cape Tariff, a point far up on the
northwestern coast of Greenland, sh