The two women ran to a window and saw that they were over a bleak and rocky island covered with ice and snow.
Droop came to their side, quite pale with fright.
"Great Moses!" he exclaimed. "I warn't more'n jest in time, I tell ye! We was a-settlin' fast. A little more'n we'd ha' struck—" He snapped the fingers of both hands and made a gesture expressive of the complete destruction which would have resulted.
"I tell you what, Mr. Droop," said Rebecca, sternly, but with a little shake in her voice, "you've got to jest tend to business and navigate this thing we're a-ridin' on. You can't work and play too. Don't you say anythin' more to Phœbe or me till we get to the pole. What time'll that be?"
"About six or half-past, I expect," said Droop, humbly. "But I don't see how I can be workin' all the time. The machine don't need it, an', besides, I've got to eat, haven't I?"
"When it comes time fer your victuals, Phœbe'll watch the windows an' the little clocks on the wall while I feed ye. But don't open yer head agin now, only fer necessary talkin' an' eatin', till we get there. I don't want any smash-ups 'round here."
Copernicus found it expedient to obey these instructions, and under Rebecca's watchful generalship he was obliged to pace back and forth from engine-room to window while Phœbe read and her sister knitted. So passed the remainder of the day, save when at dinner-time the famished man was relieved by his young lieutenant.
Immediately after supper, however, they all three posted themselves at the windows, on the lookout for the North Pole. Droop slowed down the propeller, and the aeroplanes being thus rendered less effective they slowly descended.
They were passing over an endless plain of rough and ragged ice. In every direction all the way to the horizon nothing could be seen but the glare of white.
"How'll you know when we get there?" asked Phœbe.