As to when and in what manner we should make our adventures, and the results of the expedition, public property, we were at first undecided. Newspaper notoriety was not a pleasant prospect, particularly as we were already contemplating a second voyage to the South. We therefore concluded to say nothing immediately, and meanwhile to have the old Billowcrest thoroughly overhauled and outfitted for the voyage to be undertaken in the late summer—not to the South Pole this time, but to the South Shetlands, to develop in the spot of his exile the mines which my uncle believes to be almost inexhaustible. And so—to use the so-called Irish form—we have “continued to say nothing” through the spring and summer, during which period I have prepared the matter already in the proper hands for publication. We are about to sail again now, and by the time my report is given to the reader I shall be beyond the reach of either approval or condemnation—far on my way to our new “Treasure Island” of the South, where the rarest treasure will be one who joins in this, our unique honeymoon—she who was Edith Gale. For I claimed my reward this morning—two years from the day when she jestingly agreed that I should name my price for a new world—and in the little forward cabin of the Billowcrest where the agreement was made. [Illustration] “It was hardly fair,” she whispered, just before the ceremony. “I am paying to the full, while you, though you found the world, could not deliver it into my hands.” “It is the old story,” I said. “The man always gets more than he bargained for, and the woman less.” And Chauncey Gale, when he took our hands in congratulation, repeated the first comment that was made when my uncle showed us his store of gold. “Well, Nick,” he said, “as I remarked once before, I’m something of a speculator, myself, but I give you credit for making the smallest investments and raking off the biggest returns on record.” He accompanies us on our expedition. He hesitated somewhat at first, but a few months of New York and a warm northern summer have brought back the memory and nameless fascination of the glacial atmosphere and trackless seas of the far south. “Besides,” he said, “I’m not going to become a vagrant in my old age. Think of me being homeless in the streets of New York, with no place to hang up in, except the police station of the Waldoria. Oh, Lord, what’s a hat without a hall-tree!”