no reason to fear anything from thirst. As for the raft, I will recommend Hans to do his best to repair it, although I don’t expect it will be of any further use to us.”
“How so?” I cried.
“An idea of my own, my lad. I don’t think we shall come out by the way that we went in.”
I stared at the Professor with a good deal of mistrust. I asked, was he not touched in the brain? And yet there was method in his madness.
“And now let us go to breakfast,” said he.
I followed him to a headland, after he had given his instructions to the hunter. There preserved meat, biscuit, and tea made us an excellent meal, one of the best I ever remember. Hunger, the fresh air, the calm quiet weather, after the commotions we had gone through, all contributed to give me a good appetite.
Whilst breakfasting I took the opportunity to put to my uncle the question where we were now.
“That seems to me,” I said, “rather difficult to make out.”
“Yes, it is difficult,” he said, “to calculate exactly; perhaps even impossible, since during these three stormy days I have been unable to keep any account of the rate or direction of the raft; but still we may get an approximation.”
“The last observation,” I remarked, “was made on the island, when the geyser was—”
“You mean Axel Island. Don’t decline the honour of having given your name to the first island ever discovered in the central parts of the globe.”