“We are not descending as we ought to be,” the Professor declares. “We are losing time, and the fact is, I have not come all this way to take a little sail upon a pond on a raft.”

He called this sea a pond, and our long voyage, taking a little sail!

“But,” I remarked, “since we have followed the road that Saknussemm has shown us⁠—”

“That is just the question. Have we followed that road? Did Saknussemm meet this sheet of water? Did he cross it? Has not the stream that we followed led us altogether astray?”