Page:Weird Tales Volume 12 Issue 05 (1928-11).djvu/18

crew. All are dead, all dead, and I am onl . . . ying myself, God help m . . . a is a horror from . . . th . . . enth going fas . . . bye . . ."

For many hours after the reception of that broken, enigmatic message constant calls went out to the schooner in an effort to re-establish communication with it, but there was no faintest signal of response. The message itself had been at once relayed to the officials of Eastern University and had at the same time been seized upon by the newspapers, the more sensational of which headlined the matter on the following day. And through all that day, and the next, and the next, the unceasing calls of the northern stations to the schooner went quite unanswered.

By that time the matter had become a press sensation of the first importance. This was due not only to the prominence of Dr. McQuirk and his fellow scientists, but also to the mystery which surrounded the expedition's fate—mystery which had been intensified by the last, incoherent message from the Delight. If reliance could be placed on that message, at least part of the expedition's personnel had already perished. What mishap they had met with, though, remained a problem, and an even greater problem was whether any members of the party had managed to escape the death which had overtaken the rest.

It was the latter question, indeed, that seemed of most importance to the university officials, and through their urgings extraordinary efforts were made to re-establish communication with the ship. Constant calls were broadcast from the powerful Fort de Roche and Lac d'Or stations, while over all Canada and the northern United States professional and amateur operators alike listened intently for some signal from the Delight. But all such efforts proved in vain, since at the end of a week the veil of silence that screened the schooner from the world remained quite unchanged.

By that time it had become apparent to the authorities at Eastern University that there was no hope of radio communication with the ship, yet there seemed no other possible method of getting in touch with the expedition. It was impossible to send a ship to the island for investigation, for it was now well into September and already the first floes of the great polar ice-pack would be sweeping down upon the island from the north. Long before any ship could reach it the island would be hemmed in for hundreds of miles by a mighty frozen waste through which no ship in the world could force a way. Because of this it was conceded by all that nothing could be accomplished until the breaking-up of the ice in the spring.

A last chance, however, showed itself in the form of an announcement from the Canadian government, stating that one of the aviators attached to the government topographical expedition in Victoria Land had been ordered to attempt a flight to Corson Island, five hundred miles to the north. Lieutenant Warren and his plane were to start at the first favorable moment, the announcement added, and it was hoped that he might be able to combat the Arctic storms long enough to reach the island and discover the expedition's fate.

This news held little of hope, though, even for the most optimistic. For by that time almost all had come to believe that the members of the expedition and the schooner's crew had already perished. The "all are dead" phrase in the Delight's cryptic last message was recalled, and the general expression of opinion was that the matter might be considered a closed one, another tragic chapter in the tragic history of Arctic exploration.

Even the university officials were forced to admit the probability of this view. Reluctantly they decided that until spring, and the breaking-up of