There came some startled cries through the telephone. Then, from behind, a sudden jerk that nearly flung us from the car. We had reached the end of our rope, so to speak, and had been pulled up, short. Too short, for the taut line, drawn across the sharp edge of ice, could not stand the strain. Well for us that it did not. We were already clawing tooth and nail at everything in sight, and our angle was becoming momentarily more precipitous. The car swung suddenly downward into an easier position, and then once more a white world dropped away beneath. We did not need to guess what had happened. We knew. The line had parted, and on the wings of a thirty mile wind we were bound for the South Pole. XXII. ON THE AIR-LINE, SOUTH. It is needless to say that in the few brief seconds required for these things to happen I did not continue the conversation with my fiancée. The reader will understand that I was busy—too busy even to listen to the advice that was coming through the telephone. At least I suppose it was advice—Miss Gale would naturally give advice on an occasion like that, and besides there was nothing else that she could have given, anyway. But as the instrument was at that moment swinging over the side of the car, and would have been lost to us utterly, had not Ferratoni, with great foresight, nailed it securely at the other end, and as we were engaged in holding on to a half-overturned air-boat with everything made by nature for that purpose, the connection was poor, and the advice, or sympathy, or whatever it was, wasted on the snow-clad fields. For that is what lay below us as far as we could see. The snow, the endless snow, and still the snow. From our far, cold height it seemed a level floor, though we know by what we found later that it must have been heaved and drifted. We were very high. The dropping away of the greater part of our anchor rope had sent us up like a rocket. We were a bit confused, at first, but presently we faced each other, and the situation. We were bound southward—that much was certain—and at a rapid rate of speed. Gale was first to express himself. “I’ve boarded a train going twenty-five mile an hour,” he panted, “but I never had to hold on with my teeth before. I haven’t had so much fun since I had the measles.” “It _was_ rather interesting for a second or two,” I assented. Mr. Sturritt was examining the compartments where his tablets were stored. “I feared we might have spilled—that is—been unfortunate with our supplies,” he explained. “They are all right, I see.” “Oh, they’re all right, Bill. The tablets we have always with us. But how about the sandwiches? You didn’t put any in for this trip, of course!” Mr. Sturritt looked mildly injured. “Why, yes, I obeyed—that is—I followed instructions, and prepared for the trial ascension precisely as if we were to make the intended voyage. In order that the weight might—er——”