Johnson and Clawbonny looked at each other, wondering what the captain was driving at.
"I wish," he continued, "to talk with you about our plans for the future."
"All right; talk away, while we are alone," said the Doctor.
"In a month, or six weeks at the outside, the time for making distant excursions will come again. Have you thought of what we had better undertake in summer?"
"Have you, captain?" asked Johnson.
"Have I? I may say that not an hour of my life passes without revolving in my mind my one cherished purpose. I suppose not a man among you intends to retrace his steps?"
No one replied, and Hatteras went on to say:
"For my own part, even if I must go alone, I will push on to the North Pole. Never were men so near it before, for we are not more than 360 miles distant at most; and I will not lose such an opportunity without making every attempt to reach it, even though it be an impossibility. What are your views, Doctor?"
"Your own, Hatteras."
"And yours, Johnson?"
"Like the Doctor's."
"And yours, Bell?"
"Captain," replied the carpenter, "it is true we have neither wives nor children waiting us in England, but, after all, it is one's country—one's native land! Have you no thoughts of returning home?"
"We can return after we have discovered the Pole quite as well as before, and even better. Our difficulties will not increase, for as we near the Pole we get away from the point of greatest cold. We have fuel and provisions enough. There is nothing to stop us, and we should be culpable, in my opinion, if we allowed ourselves to abandon the project."
"Very well, captain; I'll go along with you."
"That's right; I never doubted you," said Hatteras. We shall succeed, and England will have all the glory."
"But there is an American among us!" said Johnson.
Hatteras could not repress an impatient exclamation.
"I know it!" he said, in a stern voice.
"We cannot leave him behind," added the Doctor.
