"The sea has rolled back again! What did I tell you? Up and at it, my bully boys! Get a sail upon her so's we can have steering way. Every ile barrel is full and we're homeward bound!" The hatches were opened and they rushed on deck. It was so black that they could see nothing but the storm-tossed waves--not a sign of land. But it was plain, too, that they were no longer on the lee shore. They had plenty of sea room to work the ship and the brave sailors went about their usual tasks with cheerfulness. CHAPTER XXX AN ENDURING MONUMENT--CONCLUSION But Professor Henderson and the boys, as well as Andy Sudds and Washington, gathered in the chart room. The aged scientist was confident that during their period of unconsciousness the fragment of the earth that had once been shot off into space, had returned to its parent globe, and he spoke cheerfully of their probable escape. "But have we descended into the very place we left?" demanded Mark. "Scarcely probable," returned the professor. "Nevertheless the ocean has returned to this spot," declared Jack. "There is water here, yes," admitted the professor. "We are afloat, that is true." "And is it not the Arctic Ocean?" "Later I will tell you. They say there is no land in sight. I believe the bulk of the land which was shot off by the volcanic eruption has now sunk in this sea. What sea it is we can tell soon." "When can we see the sun and take an observation?" queried Mark. "Perhaps finding the temperature of this ocean which surrounds us will tell us something. However, we must have patience until this bitter storm is past." And this did call for patience, for the hurricane continued for fully a week. Meanwhile the Orion ran on under almost bare poles, and in a northwesterly direction. This course, Captain Sproul believed, would bring them to Bering Sea, and their homeward route. But a vast and amazing discovery awaited the hardy navigator of the whaling bark when the wind finally died down, the clouds were swept away, and the sun again appeared. Professor Henderson appeared on deck, too, and calculated their position side by side with Captain Sproul. The latter's amazement was unbounded. His calculations, no matter how he worked them, made the position of the _Orion_ 148 degrees west of Greenwich and 49 degrees north. In other words, he was far, far south of the Alaskan Peninsula. During this awful storm he had traversed (or so he was bound to believe) a long stretch of the Arctic Ocean, Bering Sea and Strait, had passed the Aleutian Islands, and was now more than a thousand miles south of the position of the _Orion_ when she first became stranded. The professor endeavored to explain to him again what had really happened--that the fragment of the earth on which they had been marooned had plunged into the old earth again, landing by great good fortune in the empty sea between North America and Asia--in the North Pacific.