"I want to speak with you," he said, "about our future plans."
"Well," answered the doctor, "let us talk now we are alone."
"In a month, or six weeks at the latest," Hatteras began, "we shall be able to make distant excursions. Had you thought of what might be done in the summer?"
"Had you, Captain?" asked Johnson.
"I? I can say that not an hour passes without my mind's recurring to my plan. I suppose no one of you has any thought of returning—"
There was no immediate answer to this insinuation.
"As for me," continued Hatteras, "if I have to go alone, I shall go to the North Pole; we are only three hundred and sixty miles from it at the outside. No men have ever been so near it, and I shall not let such a chance go by without the attempt, even if it be impossible. What are your views in the matter?"
"Your own," answered the doctor.
"And yours, Johnson?"
"The same as the doctor's," answered the boatswain.