feel its weight."

"You are right, I believe," returned Thorndyke, as Johnston put
the strange trophy into his pocket-book, and the two adventurers
paused a moment and looked mutely into each other's eyes.

"We haven't the faintest idea of where we are," said Johnston,
his tone showing that he was becoming more despondent. "We don't
know how long we were unconscious in the balloon, nor where we
were taken in the storm. We may now be in the very centre of the
North Polar sea--this knob may be the very pivot on which this
end of the earth revolves."

The Englishman laughed. "No danger; the sun is too natural.
>From the poles it would look different."

"I don't mean the old sun that you read so much about, and that
they make so much racket over at home, but another of which we
are the original discoverer--a sun that isn't in old Sol's beat
at all, but one that revolves round the earth from north to south
and dips in once a day at the north and the south poles. See?"

The Englishman laughed heartily and slapped his friend on the
shoulder.

"I think we are somewhere in the Atlantic; but your finding that
heel-tap does puzzle me."

"We are going to have an adventure, beside which all others of
our lives will pale into insignificance. I feel it in my bones.