"That ought to be in some lonely island in the Pacific with a colony
of scoundrels worthy of their chief."

"That is what I think. I fancy he is going west, and with the speed
he can get up it would not take, him long to get home."

"But we should not be able to put our plan into execution. If we get
there --"

"We shall not get there!"

The colleagues had partly guessed the engineer's intentions. During
the day it became no longer doubtful that when the "Albatross"
reached the confines of the Antarctic Sea her course was to be
changed. When the ice has formed about Cape Horn the lower regions of
the Pacific are covered with icefields and icebergs. The floes then
form an impenetrable barrier to the strongest ships and the boldest
navigators. Of course, by increasing the speed of her wings the
"Albatross" could clear the mountains of ice accumulated on the ocean
as she could the mountains of earth on the polar continent--if it is
a continent that forms the cap of the southern pole. But would she
attempt it in the middle of the polar night, in an atmosphere of
sixty below freezing?

After she had advanced about a hundred miles to the south the
"Albatross" headed westerly, as if for some unknown island of the
Pacific. Beneath her stretched the liquid plain between Asia and
America. The waters now had assumed that singular color which has
earned for them the name of the Milky Sea. In the half shadow, which