"Suicide!" exclaimed the old man. "One of those shells wouldn't live for five miles. Even if it should, they are not large enough to hold the four of us and the things which it would be absolutely necessary for us to have. Once away from this volcanic neighborhood we have a long stretch of icy sea to traverse. The nearest land where we should find aid is New Zealand, and that is more than two thousand miles to the north." "There's a large boat with an engine and a sail," Polaris said, "but it is in pieces." "What's that!" shouted Zenas Wright, "an auxiliary launch? Lead me to it, boy! Pieces or no pieces, we can put it together. I know enough for that, with you two strapping big fellows to help. If there's enough gasoline aboard to run her when she's assembled, we will have to chance her. It's our only chance." Without delay the two of them scrambled along the slanted decks. Aft of the deckhouse, under her tarpaulin, they found the launch. As Polaris had said, she was in pieces. Only the hull lay on the deck of the _Felix_, a stout twenty-five-foot craft. Her sixty horsepower engine and her auxiliary mast, sail, and jib were below decks. Zenas Wright looked her over with flashing eyes. "If there's gasoline enough we may make it," he said. "We've _got_ to make it!" He did a mental computation. "It's a rough two thousand miles to New Zealand. Let's see. If you can steer, son, and I think you can, running twenty-four hours a day, and using the sails to save gas when we can, we can make it in a month--if we meet no obstacles; which, of course, we will. We must provision for two months. If that doesn't take us through, God rest our souls!" "Set us at work, for there is need for haste," Polaris said. "We must be out of this place before winter closes in above us." He called the Sardanian. In the paint locker and the hold they found gasoline, twenty twenty-five gallon tanks of it--more than they could take with them. Under Zenas Wright's directions, they coaled the donkey engine on the forecastle head, rigged tackle to the mainmast, and hauled the engine up through the hatch. Many hours were spent in searching for various parts of the mechanism which they needed, but they found it all at last. The patient mechanical knowledge of the scientist was equal to the task of installing the engine. With that in its place, they stepped the mast, hauled the gasoline tanks on deck and shipped their cargo. With spirits new in the hope their work aroused, they sang at their labors. Memene, who had drooped, regained her usual vigor and vivacity.