I had no reply to this, and I feared that Captain Nemo wouldn’t take us homeward but rather into that huge ocean washing the shores of both Asia and America. In this way he would complete his underwater tour of the world, going back to those seas where the Nautilus enjoyed the greatest freedom. But if we returned to the Pacific, far from every populated shore, what would happen to Ned Land’s plans? We would soon settle this important point. The Nautilus traveled swiftly. Soon we had cleared the Antarctic Circle plus the promontory of Cape Horn. We were abreast of the tip of South America by March 31 at seven o’clock in the evening. By then all our past sufferings were forgotten. The memory of that imprisonment under the ice faded from our minds. We had thoughts only of the future. Captain Nemo no longer appeared, neither in the lounge nor on the platform. The positions reported each day on the world map were put there by the chief officer, and they enabled me to determine the Nautilus’s exact heading. Now then, that evening it became obvious, much to my satisfaction, that we were returning north by the Atlantic route. I shared the results of my observations with the Canadian and Conseil. “That’s good news,” the Canadian replied, “but where’s the Nautilus going?” “I’m unable to say, Ned.” “After the South Pole, does our captain want to tackle the North Pole, then go back to the Pacific by the notorious Northwest Passage?” “I wouldn’t double dare him,” Conseil replied. “Oh well,” the Canadian said, “we’ll give him the slip long before then.” “In any event,” Conseil added, “he’s a superman, that Captain Nemo, and we’ll never regret having known him.” “Especially once we’ve left him,” Ned Land shot back. The next day, April 1, when the Nautilus rose to the surface of the waves a few minutes before noon, we raised land to the west. It was Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire, a name given it by early navigators after they saw numerous curls of smoke rising from the natives’ huts. This Land of Fire forms a huge cluster of islands over thirty leagues long and eighty leagues wide, extending between latitude 53 degrees and 56 degrees south, and between longitude 67 degrees 50′ and 77 degrees 15′ west. Its coastline looked flat, but high mountains rose in the distance. I even thought I glimpsed Mt. Sarmiento, whose elevation is 2,070 meters above sea level: a pyramid-shaped block of shale with a very sharp summit, which, depending on whether it’s clear or veiled in vapor, “predicts fair weather or foul,” as Ned Land told me. “A first-class barometer, my friend.” “Yes, sir, a natural barometer that didn’t let me down when I navigated the narrows of the Strait of Magellan.” Just then its peak appeared before us, standing out distinctly against the background of the skies. This forecast fair weather. And so it proved.