delightfully calm.

Shutting off the engines, dropping the funnel, closing the hatch, they
sank quickly beneath the water's surface, and were soon passing below a
marvelous panorama of lights and shadow. Through the thick glass of the
observation windows there flooded tints varying from pale-blue to
ultramarine and deep purple. No sunset could vie with the color schemes
that kaleidoscoped above them. Here a great pile of ancient ice gave the
whole a reddish tinge; and here a broad pan of transparent new ice cast
down the deep-blue of the sky; and again a thicker floe admitted a light
as mellow as expert decorators could have devised.

"It's wonderful!" murmured the Doctor.



CHAPTER VII

A STRANGE PEOPLE


Ten hours after the start of the submarine, Dave Tower's eye anxiously
watched the dial which indicated a rapidly lessening supply of oxygen,
while his keenly appraising mind measured time in terms of oxygen supply.
They were still scudding along beneath that continuous kaleidoscopic
panorama of green and blue lights and shadows, but no one noticed the
beauty of it now. All eyes were strained on the plate-glass windows
above, and they looked but for one thing--a spot, black as night itself,
which would mean open water above.