“You take a cheerful view of things,” said Jack.
“Well, it’s a good thing to prepare for emergencies,” Mark added.
“If the ship was to be separated by the magnetic pull, or if it fell on sharp rocks and was split in twain, I am afraid none of us could do anything to save ourselves,” the professor answered. “Still, if we were given a little warning of the disaster, I have means at hand whereby we might escape with our lives. But it would be a perilous way of——”
“I reckon yo’ all better come out an’ have supper,” broke in Washington. “Leastways we’ll call it supper, though I don’t rightly know whether it’s night or mornin’. Anyhow I’ve got a meal ready.”
“I don’t suppose any of us feel much like eating,” observed Mr. Henderson, “but there is no telling when we will have the chance again, so, perhaps, we had better take advantage of it.”
For a while they ate in silence, finding that they had better appetites than they at first thought. Old Andy in particular did full justice to the food Washington had prepared.
“I always found it a good plan to eat as much and as often as you can,” the hunter remarked. “This is a mighty uncertain world.”
“You started to tell us a little while ago, Professor,” said Mark, “about a plan you had for saving out lives if worst came to worst, and there was a chance to put it into operation. What is it?”
“I will tell you,” the aged inventor said. “It is something about which I have kept silent, as I did not want to frighten any of you. It was my latest invention, and I had only perfected it when we started off on this voyage. Consequently I had no chance to try it. The machine works in theory, but whether it does in practice is another question. That is why I say there is a risk. But we may have to take this risk. I have placed aboard this ship a——”
The professor was interrupted in what he was about to say by a curious tremor that made the whole ship shiver as though it had struck some obstruction. Yet there was no sudden jolt or jar such as would have been occasioned by that.