A like expression of horror came over the second man’s face, as he also looked through the telescope. And no wonder at it. The people who were standing on the pier had lived with them in the north, and were believed to have vanished from life for ever. A feeling like that which arises on earth in the presence of a ghostly visitor came over the crew. They were plainly face to face with some terrible mystery, which was now to be cleared up. Meanwhile a boat with several rowers pushed off from the pier and came swiftly towards the ship. As she approached, several of the engineers recognized in the steerer the man who had perished on the awful precipice which leads up to the great observatory of the north. When the boat came within hail, this man shouted, ‘We have been expecting you for some time, and we congratulate you on your submarine passage.’ So it was plain that these mysterious people knew all about the expedition. They saw the consternation of the engineers, but evidently did not reciprocate their confusion. On the other hand, all seemed highly delighted at the arrival of their old friends. More boats came out to the ship, and the crew were speedily landed. The citizens received them with great kindness; took them hospitably into their houses, and, when the astonished guests had rested, and recovered a little from their state of utter stupefaction, the supposed ghosts communicated to them the history of their adventures in the southern hemisphere. The substance of what they learned was as follows:—The phenomenon of evanescence, hitherto supposed to be the final destruction of the subject in which it takes place, is only the first step in a much more complicated process. The evanescence itself consists in a sudden disintegration of the molecules which compose the body. But these disintegrated, and therefore invisible, molecules are really endowed with an affinity or attraction which tends to the south pole of the planet. Just as on earth, the magnetic needle turns into the magnetic meridian, so on Hesperos those organized molecules which enter into the structure of a rational animal, when freed by disintegration, instantaneously seek the South Pole, the transmission taking place with the exact velocity of light. On reaching the pole, reintegration is equally instantaneous; so that in Hesperos we may say that the death, decomposition, and resurrection of the body form three consecutive steps in one connected series of events, the whole of which is accomplished in a single instant.