tunate shipwrecked travelers. It was certainly less striking and romantic, but it was decidedly safer.
As we advanced, I could hear my worthy uncle muttering to himself—"But the compass. The compass most certainly marked north. This is a fact I cannot explain in any way."
"Well, the fact is," said I, with an air of disdain, "we must not explain anything. It will be much more easy."
"I should like to see a professor of the Johanneum Institution, who is unable to explain a cosmic phenomenon—it would indeed be strange." And speaking thus; my uncle, half-naked, his leathern purse round his loins, and his spectacles upon his nose, became once more the terrible Professor of Mineralogy.
An hour after leaving the wood of olives, we reached the fort of San Vicenza, where Hans demanded the price of his thirteenth week of service. My uncle paid him, with many warm shakes of the hand.
At that moment, if he did not indeed quite share our natural emotion, he allowed his feelings so far to give way as to indulge in an extraordinary expression for him. With the tips of two fingers he gently pressed our hands and smiled.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE JOURNEY ENDED
This is the final conclusion of a narrative which will be probably disbelieved even by people who are astonished at nothing. I am, however, armed at all points against human incredulity.
We were kindly received by the Strombolite fishermen, who treated us as shipwrecked travelers. They gave us clothes and food. After a delay of forty-eight hours, on the 31st of September a little vessel took us to Messina, where a few days of delightful and complete repose restored us to ourselves.
On Friday, the 4th of October, we embarked in the Volturus, one of the postal packets of the Imperial Messagerie of France; and three days later we landed at Marseilles, having no other care on our minds but that of our precious
