“I wonder where we’ll be to-morrow night. It’s going to work all right. The only question is, how many miles do you get out of a hundred pounds of rice?”
The next morning, after they had taken their bearings, Pant said, “Far as I can make out, we’re something like a hundred and fifty miles from the wreck. Question is, will our fuel carry us that far?”
“Our fuel? What fuel?” his two friends echoed.
“Yes,” smiled Pant, “we have some fuel—two hundred pounds of it.”
“The rice!” exclaimed Johnny. “I hadn’t thought of using it for that.”
“Well, perhaps we’d better not,” said Pant, wrinkling his brow. “It’s all that stands between us and starvation. Our brown friends left the island last night. What’s more,” he went on, “I don’t know how much carbon there is in rice. Do either of you?”
They both answered in the negative.
“Well, there you are,” said Pant. “You see, if we can’t tell that, there is no way of guessing how far two hundred pounds of rice will carry us. It may let us down after we’ve gone fifty miles and clump us right into the ocean. And the next time we may not be as fortunate as we were this time in finding a safe harbor. Then again, we might land safely in the lee of another of these islands, only to find ourselves without a single mouthful of food. So you see there’s something of a hazard in it.”
The Professor rose and began to pace back and forth. He was very plainly agitated. For fully five minutes he did not speak. Then he turned to face the boys.
“The need of haste,” he said slowly, “is great. Nothing in the world, it seems to me, could be much more important. But you have risked your lives for the cause; I will not press you to do so again. You must decide for yourselves whether we shall take the venture or not. As for me, I am ready to go.”