"Due south," he replied.
"Why haven't we turned around and tried to get out of here?" I asked.
He chuckled.
"We're caught in a current," he said. "We can bear to the southwest or bear to the southeast, but that is about it. We're crippled, too, remember, in the sail we can lift. We've no choice at this time but to go south."
"I've a question then," I said. "Why isn't it colder? I caught sight of a few floes while I was being fetched aboard, but the air lacks the frigidity I associate with the notion of the polar climes. This seems almost like a mild winter back home."
"I can find no reference in any of my navigational volumes on this paradoxical warming effect," he replied. "If we make it through this I've a hunch we'll be the authorities on the matter."
"Tell 'im 'bout them black bears, cap'n," Peters remarked.
"Oh, yes," Captain Guy acknowledged. "Recently we've spotted a number of them—great black fellows with red eyes and teeth."
"Red teeth?"
"Aye, them, too. You ever hear of such a creature?"
"I have not," I replied. "Have we encountered any land masses hereabout?"
"A few islands," he said. "Nothing striking about them."
"Is that everything?" I inquired.
Peters and the captain glanced at each other, which meant, of course, that there was more. Captain Guy nodded.
"Seems as we're movin' faster and faster," Peters said then. "Pickin' up speed ever' day."
I had a sudden vision from my now faded dream-like excursion aboard the Discovery.
"Meaning that the current is moving faster, and faster," I stated.
"Exactly," the captain acknowledged. "Which means we must seriously consider a theory propounded by a Colonel Symmes of Ohio, to the effect that the Earth is hollow, and that the currents of the seas pour through a vortex at the South Pole to emerge from an opening at the North Pole, thence to recirculate... ."
And my vision continued. Round and round like a colossal drain from which the plug had been pulled... . Was this in some fashion premonitory of our present plight as well as indicative of whatever it revealed on its own.
I raised my hands, massaged my eyeballs with their heels.
"I seem to recall reading a magazine piece on this notion, some time ago," I told him. "By a fellow named Reynolds, I believe."
"Yes," Captain Guy said. "I saw it, too. While the welfare of this vessel and that of everyone aboard her is my responsibility, Mr. Ellison has requested that I discuss matters of great moment with you. In other words, sir, what is your opinion as to the best course of action we should take?"
"Lord!" I said. "It's a guessing game!"
"Then give me your guess," he insisted.
"Very well," I replied. "Whether the Earth be truly hollow or whether something else be the cause of our precipitate rush, I believe we're likely to go smash when we get there. So I feel we should start veering off immediately, as a delaying action." I groped in the pocket of the trousers I had discarded, found a Spanish coin, tossed it. "Heads," I announced. "Let's go east."
Captain Guy smiled bleakly.
"As good a way to choose as any, I suppose," he acknowledged. "Very well—"
There came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping on the distant wall. It resembled the effect I often produced when attempting mesmerism. Ligeia was on her feet immediately.
"Excuse me," she said, and she was gone out the door.
"What might that be about?" the captain asked.
I glanced at Peters, who nodded.
"I take it you know all about Monsieur Valdemar now?" I said.
"Concerning his extra-normal abilities? Yes. Ligeia explained the situation to me, once the—cat was out of the bag, so to speak."
His face suddenly brightened. He half-rose from his chair.
"Of course!" he said, and I nodded.
Moments later, Ligeia returned.
"Bear full to the southwest at six bells tomorrow morn," she stated.
"Certainly," the captain said.
"Indeed," I noted.
They gave me another brandy, and then I went to sleep.
We continued to see a good deal of ice on our new course, but the weather had grown even more clement. I did catch sight of one of the great black bears but even more interesting—the following day—was a glimpse of a canoe filled with black-skinned, ebony-toothed folk. We shot past them, however.
And another day came and went.
Then Ligeia emerged from Valdemar's cabin, catching me on the companionway as I was returning to my stateroom from a stroll about the deck.
"Soon," she announced.
"Soon what?"
She gestured Indian-style with her chin, back up the stair. Turning, I reascended, and she followed me.
She took me aft then and indicated the north-northwest.
"It will come from that direction," she said. "Watch for it, will you?"
"What? What will come?" I asked.
"I forget your word for it," she said, and she turned and was gone.
So I jammed my hands into my pockets, leaned against the rail and watched. Nothing happened for a long while. I found myself almost hypnotized by the bright flashes on the rushing water.
"Damn it Perry!"
"'Ey, Eddie! Whatcher up to?"
Peters had come up soundlessly behind me, Grip perched upon his shoulder.
"Nothing much," I said. "Just watching for it in the sky, to the north-northwest."
"Watchin' fer what?"
"Ah— Well, she didn't exactly say."
"Really," he said, turning his head in that direction. "Somethin' sort of like a big fool's cap, upside-down, with a basket hangin' under it?"
"What?"
I turned and stared. I squinted. I shaded my eyes. I saw nothing.
"You speak hypothetically, of course," I said, after a few moments.
"Dunno what that means, Eddie. But yer know I don't talk fancy."
"You don't really see something like that up there, do you?"
"Now why ud I make up somethin' that stupid, Eddie. 'Course it's there."
I kept looking. The best I could make out was a tiny speck against the blue—either a distant bird or a trick my eyes were playing.
"There's a black band goes 'round it, with somethin' like a silver buckle on it, too."
"You actually see the thing?"
"Sure. She's there, Eddie."
I began to recall stories about the remarkable vision of the Indians of the Plains.
"You say it, you see it," I said. "What else is there?"
He continued to stare.
"Looks to be a man in the basket," he finally announced.
I continued gazing in that direction myself. The speck had grown larger.
"Bear shit," Grip commented, as we passed an ice floe where one of the scarlet-fanged brutes was relieving itself.
"'At's a good Gripper," said Peters, rummaging in his pocket for a cracker and passing it to him. "Quick learner."
"Yo," said the raven.
It grew larger still, though it was several minutes more before it became distinguishable to me as possessing the shape Peters had attributed to it.
"'At dead man sure knows his business," Peters observed.
"Got to give him that," I agreed.
And the thing came on and on, and I recalled articles I'd read about balloons, remembering the basket beneath the gasbag to be called a gondola. Nearer still, and I saw that this one did indeed possess a human inhabitant. The device was obviously headed right toward us, and it was descending. I began to grow concerned that it might upset or rupture itself amid such masts and sails as we still possessed. I heard a hissing sound as it drew nigh. Then it drifted past us and settled gently into a mild sea off our starboard bow.