"They might be," admitted the professor.
"Then we'll go aboard and get the gold," spoke Mark.
"I'm afraid you'll be disappointed," went on the inventor. "In the first place most treasure ships are looted before they sink. And it would be very dangerous for any of us to venture to explore those hulks."
"Why?" asked Jack.
"Because they are rotten, and liable to fall to pieces any minute. If you happened to be in one at the time you would be caught in the wreckage and eventually drowned even though you had on a diving suit. Then, again, the ice here is constantly shifting about, and a sudden motion of the under-water floe might carry you hundreds of miles away. So we will not try to hunt for any fortunes on the sunken ships."
With this the boys were forced to be content. They stood at the small windows looking at the skeletons of ships that lay on every side of the Porpoise. Some of the craft were big steamers, and others were small sailing vessels. A few had jagged holes in the hulls, showing how they had been damaged. A few stood upright, with sails all set, as if disaster had suddenly come upon them.
"Well, what is the next move?" asked Andy after a pause. "Are we going to stay here?"
"We are going to find the South Pole," spoke Mr. Henderson suddenly. "That is what I set out to do, and I am going to accomplish it if possible. We have had many accidents and a harder time in some respects than when we made our trip to the north in the air ship. But I am sure we shall succeed. Start the ship to the south, Washington."
"But we may run into an iceberg," objected the old hunter, who was inclined to be cautious.
"I think not," answered Mr. Henderson. "I believe we are on a sort of level plane between two vast upper and lower fields of ice. We can go freely in any direction excepting up or down."