ich, as we have said, had considerably lightened their work.
At this moment half of them were in action, enough to keep the
"Albatross" fixed to the shore by the taut cable. But the two
propellers had suffered, and more than Robur had thought. Their
blades would have to be adjusted and the gearing seen to by which
they received their rotatory movement.

It was the screw at the bow which was first attacked under Robur's
superintendence. It was the best to commence with, in case the
"Albatross" had to leave before the work was finished. With only this
propeller he could easily keep a proper course.

Meanwhile Uncle Prudent and his colleague, after walking about the
deck, had sat down aft. Frycollin was strangely reassured. What a
difference! To be suspended only one hundred and fifty feet from the
ground!

The work was only interrupted for a moment while the elevation of the
sun above the horizon allowed Robur to take an horary angle, so that
at the time of its culmination he could calculate his position.

The result of the observation, taken with the greatest exactitude,
was as follows:

Longitude, 176 deg. 10' west.
Latitude, 44 deg. 25' south.

This point on the map answered to the position of the Chatham
Islands, and particularly of Pitt Island, one of the group.

"That is nearer than I supposed," said Robur to Tom Turner.

"How far off are we?"

"Forty-six degrees south of X Island, or two thousand eight hundred
miles."

"All the more reason to get our propellers into order," said the
mate. "We may have the wind against us this passage, and with the
little stores we have left we ought to get to X as soon as possible."

"Yes, Tom, and I hope to get under way tonight, even if I go with one
screw, and put the other to-rights on the voyage."

"Mr. Robur," said Tom "What is to be done with those two gentlemen
and their servant?"

"Do you think they would complain if they became colonists of X
Island?"

But where was this X? It was an island lost in the immensity of the
Pacific Ocean between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer--an
island most appropriately named by Robur in this algebraic fashion.
It was in the north of the South Pacific, a long way out of the route
of inter-oceanic communication. There it was that Robur had founded
his little colony, and there the "Albatross" rested when tired with
her flight. There she was provisioned for all her voyages. In X
Island, Robur, a man of im