So stoutly did the two young giants set their hands to their task that within four days of the time they started they attached the sturdy launch to the davits and swung her over the side of the _Felix_ by aid of the invaluable donkey engine. Zenas Wright immediately went aboard and tried out the engine. He spent the most of another day tinkering with the mechanism until it suited him, and then announced that they were ready for their perilous dash for the open sea and freedom. The ring of rock that had made the _Felix_ prisoner did not offer the same obstacle to the launch that it did to the greater ship. Near the north coast of the bay was a channel deep enough so that the launch could barely pass through to the sea. In a number of places it was so narrow that Wright and Janess were forced to use drills and dynamite, and blow away projecting rocks. It was a great regret to the voyagers that they could not take their dogs with them. There was not room on the launch for the animals and food for them. Zenas Wright, now formally nominated the leader of the expedition, by right of his knowledge of navigation, compromised to the extent of carrying along two of the gray brutes of Minos, named Kalor and Thetis. But the old man conditioned that, if it came to a question of food scarcity, the brutes would have to be done away with. The rest of the animals they turned loose ashore. Not forgotten in their preparations for departure was the wealth of Sardanian rubies. Finding a small leather traveling bag on board the _Felix_, Polaris packed it with the skin sacks in which they had placed the gems before they had left the cave on Latmos. At last they bade farewell to the old _Felix_, now doubly deserted, and put out for the open seas. It was nearly three months since the two adventurers had left the _Minnetonka_ to find Sardanes, when they passed out of the enclosed basin and turned the bow of the launch northward. Around them roared the volcanic mountains. They saw the last of the _Felix_ through a falling storm of impalpable ashes, so thick that it darkened the sunlight. * * * * * Four weeks steady progress, sailing when they could and using their treasured gasoline sparingly, carried them well above the Circle. Unceasing vigilance alone enabled them to make that progress, surrounded as they were by the menace of floating ice, collision with which would have crushed their craft like an eggshell. When they made use of their sail, Polaris took long spells at the wheel; but when it was necessary to put the engine into commission old Zenas Wright could neither rest nor sleep. Came a day when the Princess Memene whispered briefly in the king's ear the burden of a pretty secret that she could no longer bear to keep from him. Close enfolded in his arms, she told him that which caused him to flush as radiantly as she.