s of the
appellation, they entered it so on their charts. While Ayrault got the
batteries in shape for resuming work. Bearwarden prepared a
substantial breakfast. This consisted of oatmeal and cream kept
hermetically sealed in glass, a dish of roast grouse, coffee, pilot
bread, a bottle of Sauterne, and another of Rhine wine.

"This is the last meal we shall take hereabouts," said their cook, as
they plied their knives and forks beneath the trees, "so here is a
toast to our adventures, and to all the game we have killed." They
drained their glasses in drinking this, after which Bearwarden regaled
them with the latest concert-hall song which he had at his tongue's end.

About an hour before dark they re-entered their projectile, and, as a
mark of respect to their little ship, named the great branch of the
continent on which they had alighted Callisto Point. They then got
under way. The batteries had to develop almost their maximum power to
overcome Jupiter's attraction; but they were equal to the task, and the
Callisto was soon in the air. Directing their apergy to the mountains
towards the interior of the continent, and applying repulsion to any
ridge or hill over which they passed, thereby easing the work of the
batteries engaged in supporting the Callisto, they were soon sweeping
along at seventy-five to one hundred miles an hour. By keeping the
projectile just strongly enough charged to neutralize gravitation, they
remained for the most part within two hundred feet of the ground,
seldom rising to an altitude of more than a mile, and were therefore
able to keep the windows at the sides open and so obtain an
unobstructed view. If, however, at any time they felt oppressed by
Jupiter's high barometric pressure, and preferred the terrestrial
conditions, they had but to rise till the barometer fell to thirty.
Then, if an object of interest recalled them to sea-level, they could
keep the Callisto's inside pressure at what they found on the Jovian
mountains, by screwing up the windows. On account of the distance of
sixty-four thousand miles from Jupiter's equator to the pole, they
calculated that going at the speed of a hundred miles an hour, night
and day, it would take them twenty-five terrestrial days to reach the
pole even from latitude two degrees at which they started. But they
knew that, if pressed for time, they could rise above the limits of the
atmosphere, and move with planetary speed; while, if they w