the metal runners were an evidence that they had not actually
left the level surface of the ice, the captain and lieutenant might
again and again have imagined that they were being conveyed through the
air in a balloon.

Lieutenant Procope, with his head all muffled up for fear of frost-bite,
took an occasional peep through an aperture that had been intentionally
left in the roof, and by the help of a compass, maintained a proper and
straight course for Formentera. Nothing could be more dejected than the
aspect of that frozen sea; not a single living creature relieved the
solitude; both the travelers, Procope from a scientific point of view,
Servadac from an aesthetic, were alike impressed by the solemnity of the
scene, and where the lengthened shadow of the sail cast upon the ice by
the oblique rays of the setting sun had disappeared, and day had
given place to night, the two men, drawn together as by an involuntary
impulse, mutually held each other's hands in silence.

There had been a new moon on the previous evening; but, in the absence
of moonlight, the constellations shone with remarkable brilliancy.
The new pole-star close upon the horizon was resplendent, and even had
Lieutenant Procope been destitute of a compass, he would have had no
difficulty in holding his course by the guidance of that alone. However
great was the distance that separated Gallia from the sun, it was after
all manifestly insignificant in comparison with the remoteness of the
nearest of the fixed stars.

Observing that Servadac was completely absorbed in his own thoughts,
Lieutenant Procope had leisure to contemplate some of the present
perplexing problems, and to ponder over the true astronomical position.
The last of the three mysterious documents had represented that Gallia,
in conformity with Kepler's second law, had traveled along her orbit
during the month of March twenty millions of leagues less than she had
done in the previous month; yet, in the same time, her distance from the
sun had nevertheless been increased by thirty-two millions of leagues.
She was now, therefore, in the center of the zone of telescopic planets
that revolve between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and had captured
for herself a satellite which, according to the document, was Nerina,
one of the asteroids most recently identified. If thus, then, it was
within the power of the unknown writer to estimate with such apparent
certainty Gallia's exact position, was