“Yes, but only within specified limits.”
“Very good,” he said humbly.
Then, in reply to her questions, he said he intended to follow Captain Scott’s line. The fact that it was sixty miles longer than the other one was of no consequence. He proposed to go to America and get his ship and everything else there.
“The Yanks will pull themselves together quicker than we can hope to do over here. America’s the shop to buy our little bag of tricks in.” And he had a bright idea. “I say, old J. L. Porter might be willing to stand some of the racket. I let him down rather badly last time; but he’s a real sportsman—and I may as well try to touch him again.”
“No,” said Miss Verinder firmly. “This is my show. And I don’t want anybody else in it.”
CHAPTER XVI
THE year 1919 was, for Miss Verinder, quiet and uneventful. Magnificently equipped by that country which even peace had not robbed of its power to hustle, with such a splendid command as he had never till now enjoyed, Dyke reached Australian waters some time in the autumn. He called his ship The Follower, and in it he sailed away towards the darkness and the silence. About March, 1920, he must have taken up his winter quarters; and his southern advance would begin, “according to plan,” with the opening of the Antarctic summer.
Early in September of 1920 the relief ship, named the Heather Bell, was to sail from Hobart; and thence onward Miss Verinder might begin to count the months. She could scarcely expect to receive any news till the end of January or the beginning of February, 1921; and until then there should be no real grounds for anxiety. Or, in other and more accurate words, the fate of the new expedition could not possibly be known until the new year.
Now, in this month of September of 1920, Miss Verinder received a cablegram from Hobart, saying that the Heather Bell and Twining had duly departed.