Île mystérieuse. English

Chapter 18

At break of day the colonists re­gained in si­lence the en­trance of the cav­ern, to which they gave the name of “Dakkar Grot­to,” in mem­ory of Cap­tain Nemo. It was now low-​wa­ter, and they passed with­out dif­fi­cul­ty un­der the ar­cade, washed on the right by the sea.

The ca­noe was left here, care­ful­ly pro­tect­ed from the waves. As ad­di­tion­al pre­cau­tion, Pen­croft, Neb, and Ayr­ton drew it up on a lit­tle beach which bor­dered one of the sides of the grot­to, in a spot where it could run no risk of harm.

The storm had ceased dur­ing the night. The last low mut­ter­ings of the thun­der died away in the west. Rain fell no longer, but the sky was yet ob­scured by clouds. On the whole, this month of Oc­to­ber, the first of the south­ern spring, was not ush­ered in by sat­is­fac­to­ry to­kens, and the wind had a ten­den­cy to shift from one point of the com­pass to an­oth­er, which ren­dered it im­pos­si­ble to count up­on set­tled weath­er.

Cyrus Hard­ing and his com­pan­ions, on leav­ing Dakkar Grot­to, had tak­en the road to the cor­ral. On their way Neb and Her­bert were care­ful to pre­serve the wire which had been laid down by the cap­tain be­tween the cor­ral and the grot­to, and which might at a fu­ture time be of ser­vice.

The colonists spoke but lit­tle on the road. The var­ious in­ci­dents of the night of Oc­to­ber 15th had left a pro­found im­pres­sion on their minds. The un­known be­ing whose in­flu­ence had so ef­fec­tu­al­ly pro­tect­ed them, the man whom their imag­ina­tion had en­dowed with su­per­nat­ural pow­ers, Cap­tain Nemo, was no more. His “Nau­tilus” and he were buried in the depths of the abyss. To each one of them their ex­is­tence seemed even more iso­lat­ed than be­fore. They had been ac­cus­tomed to count up­on the in­ter­ven­tion of that pow­er which ex­ist­ed no longer, and Gideon Spilett, and even Cyrus Hard­ing, could not es­cape this im­pres­sion. Thus they main­tained a pro­found si­lence dur­ing their jour­ney to the cor­ral.

To­wards nine in the morn­ing the colonists ar­rived at Gran­ite House.

It had been agreed that the con­struc­tion of the ves­sel should be ac­tive­ly pushed for­ward, and Cyrus Hard­ing more than ev­er de­vot­ed his time and la­bor to this ob­ject. It was im­pos­si­ble to di­vine what fu­ture lay be­fore them. Ev­ident­ly the ad­van­tage to the colonists would be great of hav­ing at their dis­pos­al a sub­stan­tial ves­sel, ca­pa­ble of keep­ing the sea even in heavy weath­er, and large enough to at­tempt, in case of need, a voy­age of some du­ra­tion. Even if, when their ves­sel should be com­plet­ed, the colonists should not re­solve to leave Lin­coln Is­land as yet, in or­der to gain ei­ther one of the Poly­ne­sian Archipela­goes of the Pa­cif­ic or the shores of New Zealand, they might at least, soon­er or lat­er, pro­ceed to Ta­bor Is­land, to leave there the no­tice re­lat­ing to Ayr­ton. This was a pre­cau­tion ren­dered in­dis­pens­able by the pos­si­bil­ity of the Scotch yacht reap­pear­ing in those seas, and it was of the high­est im­por­tance that noth­ing should be ne­glect­ed on this point.

The works were then re­sumed. Cyrus Hard­ing, Pen­croft, and Ayr­ton, as­sist­ed by Neb, Gideon Spilett, and Her­bert, ex­cept when un­avoid­ably called off by oth­er nec­es­sary oc­cu­pa­tions, worked with­out ces­sa­tion. It was im­por­tant that the new ves­sel should be ready in five months–that is to say, by the be­gin­ning of March–if they wished to vis­it Ta­bor Is­land be­fore the equinoc­tial gales ren­dered the voy­age im­prac­ti­ca­ble. There­fore the car­pen­ters lost not a mo­ment. More­over, it was un­nec­es­sary to man­ufac­ture rig­ging, that of the “Speedy” hav­ing been saved en­tire, so that the hull on­ly of the ves­sel need­ed to be con­struct­ed.

The end of the year 1868 found them oc­cu­pied by these im­por­tant labors, to the ex­clu­sion of al­most all oth­ers. At the ex­pi­ra­tion of two months and a half the ribs had been set up and the first planks ad­just­ed. It was al­ready ev­ident that the plans made by Cyrus Hard­ing were ad­mirable, and that the ves­sel would be­have well at sea.

Pen­croft brought to the task a de­vour­ing en­er­gy, and would even grum­ble when one or the oth­er aban­doned the car­pen­ter’s axe for the gun of the hunter. It was nev­er­the­less nec­es­sary to keep up the stores of Gran­ite House, in view of the ap­proach­ing win­ter. But this did not sat­is­fy Pen­croft. The brave, hon­est sailor was not con­tent when the work­men were not at the dock­yard. when this hap­pened he grum­bled vig­or­ous­ly, and, by way of vent­ing his feel­ings, did the work of six men.

The weath­er was very un­fa­vor­able dur­ing the whole of the sum­mer sea­son. For some days the heat was over­pow­er­ing, and the at­mo­sphere, sat­urat­ed with elec­tric­ity, was on­ly cleared by vi­olent storms. It was rarely that the dis­tant growl­ing of the thun­der could not be heard, like a low but in­ces­sant mur­mur, such as is pro­duced in the equa­to­ri­al re­gions of the globe.

The 1st of Jan­uary, 1869, was sig­nal­ized by a storm of ex­treme vi­olence, and the thun­der burst sev­er­al times over the is­land. Large trees were struck by the elec­tric flu­id and shat­tered, and among oth­ers one of those gi­gan­tic net­tle-​trees which had shad­ed the poul­try-​yard at the south­ern ex­trem­ity of the lake. Had this me­te­or any re­la­tion to the phe­nom­ena go­ing on in the bow­els of the earth? Was there any con­nec­tion be­tween the com­mo­tion of the at­mo­sphere and that of the in­te­ri­or of the earth? Cyrus Hard­ing was in­clined to think that such was the case, for the de­vel­op­ment of these storms was at­tend­ed by the re­new­al of vol­canic symp­toms.

It was on the 3rd of Jan­uary that Her­bert, hav­ing as­cend­ed at day­break to the plateau of Prospect Heights to har­ness one of the on­agers, per­ceived an enor­mous hat-​shaped cloud rolling from the sum­mit of the vol­cano.

Her­bert im­me­di­ate­ly ap­prised the colonists, who at once joined him in watch­ing the sum­mit of Mount Franklin.

“Ah!” ex­claimed Pen­croft, “those are not va­pors this time! It seems to me that the gi­ant is not con­tent with breath­ing; he must smoke!”

This fig­ure of speech em­ployed by the sailor ex­act­ly ex­pressed the changes go­ing on at the mouth of the vol­cano. Al­ready for three months had the crater emit­ted va­pors more or less dense, but which were as yet pro­duced on­ly by an in­ter­nal ebul­li­tion of min­er­al sub­stances. But now the va­pors were re­placed by a thick smoke, ris­ing in the form of a gray­ish col­umn, more than three hun­dred feet in width at its base, and which spread like an im­mense mush­room to a height of from sev­en to eight hun­dred feet above the sum­mit of the moun­tain.

“The fire is in the chim­ney,” ob­served Gideon Spilett.

“And we can’t put it out!” replied Her­bert.

“The vol­cano ought to be swept,” ob­served Neb, who spoke as if per­fect­ly se­ri­ous.

“Well said, Neb!” cried Pen­croft, with a shout of laugh­ter; “and you’ll un­der­take the job, no doubt?”

Cyrus Hard­ing at­ten­tive­ly ob­served the dense smoke emit­ted by Mount Franklin, and even lis­tened, as if ex­pect­ing to hear some dis­tant mut­ter­ing. Then, turn­ing to­wards his com­pan­ions, from whom he had gone some­what apart, he said,–

“The truth is, my friends, we must not con­ceal from our­selves that an im­por­tant change is go­ing for­ward. The vol­canic sub­stances are no longer in a state of ebul­li­tion, they have caught fire, and we are un­doubt­ed­ly men­aced by an ap­proach­ing erup­tion.”

“Well, cap­tain,” said Pen­croft, “we shall wit­ness the erup­tion; and if it is a good one, we’ll ap­plaud it. I don’t see that we need con­cern our­selves fur­ther about the mat­ter.”

“It may be so,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “for the an­cient track of the la­va is still open; and thanks to this, the crater has hith­er­to over­flowed to­wards the north. And yet–“

“And yet, as we can de­rive no ad­van­tage from an erup­tion, it might be bet­ter it should not take place,” said the re­porter.

“Who knows?” an­swered the sailor. “Per­haps there may be some valu­able sub­stance in this vol­cano, which it will spout forth, and which we may turn to good ac­count!”

Cyrus Hard­ing shook his head with the air of a man who au­gured no good from the phe­nomenon whose de­vel­op­ment had been so sud­den. He did not re­gard so light­ly as Pen­croft the re­sults of an erup­tion. If the la­va, in con­se­quence of the po­si­tion of the crater, did not di­rect­ly men­ace the wood­ed and cul­ti­vat­ed parts of the is­land, oth­er com­pli­ca­tions might present them­selves. In fact, erup­tions are not un­fre­quent­ly ac­com­pa­nied by earth­quakes; and an is­land of the na­ture of Lin­coln Is­land, formed of sub­stances so var­ied, basalt on one side, gran­ite on the oth­er, la­va on the north, rich soil on the south, sub­stances which con­se­quent­ly could not be firm­ly at­tached to each oth­er, would be ex­posed to the risk of dis­in­te­gra­tion. Al­though, there­fore, the spread­ing of the vol­canic mat­ter might not con­sti­tute a se­ri­ous dan­ger, any move­ment of the ter­res­tri­al struc­ture which should shake the is­land might en­tail the gravest con­se­quences.

“It seems to me,” said Ayr­ton, who had re­clined so as to place his ear to the ground, “it seems to me that I can hear a dull, rum­bling sound, like that of a wag­on load­ed with bars of iron.”

The colonists lis­tened with the great­est at­ten­tion, and were con­vinced that Ayr­ton was not mis­tak­en. The rum­bling was min­gled with a sub­ter­ranean roar, which formed a sort of rin­forzan­do, and died slow­ly away, as if some vi­olent storm had passed through the pro­fun­di­ties of the globe. But no ex­plo­sion prop­er­ly so termed, could be heard. It might there­fore be con­clud­ed that the va­pors and smoke found a free pas­sage through the cen­tral shaft; and that the safe­ty-​valve be­ing suf­fi­cient­ly large, no con­vul­sion would be pro­duced, no ex­plo­sion was to be ap­pre­hend­ed.

“Well, then!” said Pen­croft, “are we not go­ing back to work? Let Mount Franklin smoke, groan, bel­low, or spout forth fire and flame as much as it pleas­es, that is no rea­son why we should be idle! Come, Ayr­ton, Neb, Her­bert, Cap­tain Hard­ing, Mr. Spilett, ev­ery one of us must turn to at our work to-​day! We are go­ing to place the keel­son, and a dozen pair of hands would not be too many. Be­fore two months I want our new ‘Bonad­ven­ture’– for we shall keep the old name, shall we not?–to float on the wa­ters of Port Bal­loon! There­fore there is not an hour to lose!”

All the colonists, their ser­vices thus req­ui­si­tioned by Pen­croft, de­scend­ed to the dock­yard, and pro­ceed­ed to place the keel­son, a thick mass of wood which forms the low­er por­tion of a ship and unites firm­ly the tim­bers of the hull. It was an ar­du­ous un­der­tak­ing, in which all took part.

They con­tin­ued their labors dur­ing the whole of this day, the 3rd of Jan­uary, with­out think­ing fur­ther of the vol­cano, which could not, be­sides, be seen from the shore of Gran­ite House. But once or twice, large shad­ows, veil­ing the sun, which de­scribed its di­ur­nal arc through an ex­treme­ly clear sky, in­di­cat­ed that a thick cloud of smoke passed be­tween its disc and the is­land. The wind, blow­ing on the shore, car­ried all these va­pors to the west­ward. Cyrus Hard­ing and Gideon Spilett re­marked these somber ap­pear­ances, and from time to time dis­cussed the ev­ident progress of the vol­canic phe­nom­ena, but their work went on with­out in­ter­rup­tion. It was, be­sides, of the first im­por­tance from ev­ery point of view, that the ves­sel should be fin­ished with the least pos­si­ble de­lay. In pres­ence of the even­tu­al­ities which might arise, the safe­ty of the colonists would be to a great ex­tent se­cured by their ship. Who could tell that it might not prove some day their on­ly refuge?

In the evening, af­ter sup­per, Cyrus Hard­ing, Gideon Spilett, and Her­bert again as­cend­ed the plateau of Prospect Heights. It was al­ready dark, and the ob­scu­ri­ty would per­mit them to as­cer­tain if flames or in­can­des­cent mat­ter thrown up by the vol­cano were min­gled with the va­por and smoke ac­cu­mu­lat­ed at the mouth of the crater.

“The crater is on fire!” said Her­bert, who, more ac­tive than his com­pan­ion, first reached the plateau.

Mount Franklin, dis­tant about six miles, now ap­peared like a gi­gan­tic torch, around the sum­mit of which turned fulig­inous flames. So much smoke, and pos­si­bly sco­ri­ae and cin­ders were min­gled with them, that their light gleamed but faint­ly amid the gloom of the night. But a kind of lurid bril­lian­cy spread over the is­land, against which stood out con­fus­ed­ly the wood­ed mass­es of the heights. Im­mense whirl­winds of va­por ob­scured the sky, through which glim­mered a few stars.

“The change is rapid!” said the en­gi­neer.

“That is not sur­pris­ing,” an­swered the re­porter. “The reawak­en­ing of the vol­cano al­ready dates back some time. You may re­mem­ber, Cyrus, that the first va­pors ap­peared about the time we searched the sides of the moun­tain to dis­cov­er Cap­tain Nemo’s re­treat. It was, if I mis­take not, about the 15th of Oc­to­ber.”

“Yes,” replied Her­bert, “two months and a half ago!”

“The sub­ter­ranean fires have there­fore been smol­der­ing for ten weeks,” re­sumed Gideon Spilett, “and it is not to be won­dered at that they now break out with such vi­olence!”

“Do not you feel a cer­tain vi­bra­tion of the soil?” asked Cyrus Hard­ing.

“Yes,” replied Gideon Spilett, “but there is a great dif­fer­ence be­tween that and an earth­quake.”

“I do not af­firm that we are men­aced with an earth­quake,” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing, “may God pre­serve us from that! No; these vi­bra­tions are due to the ef­fer­ves­cence of the cen­tral fire. The crust of the earth is sim­ply the shell of a boil­er, and you know that such a shell, un­der the pres­sure of steam, vi­brates like a sonorous plate. it is this ef­fect which is be­ing pro­duced at this mo­ment.”

“What mag­nif­icent flames!” ex­claimed Her­bert.

At this in­stant a kind of bou­quet of flames shot forth from the crater, the bril­lian­cy of which was vis­ible even through the va­pors. Thou­sands of lu­mi­nous sheets and barbed tongues of fire were cast in var­ious di­rec­tions. Some, ex­tend­ing be­yond the dome of smoke, dis­si­pat­ed it, leav­ing be­hind an in­can­des­cent pow­der. This was ac­com­pa­nied by suc­ces­sive ex­plo­sions, re­sem­bling the dis­charge of a bat­tery of ma­chine-​guns.

Cyrus Hard­ing, the re­porter, and Her­bert, af­ter spend­ing an hour on the plateau of Prospect Heights, again de­scend­ed to the beach, and re­turned to Gran­ite House. The en­gi­neer was thought­ful and pre­oc­cu­pied, so much so, in­deed, that Gideon Spilett in­quired if he ap­pre­hend­ed any im­me­di­ate dan­ger, of which the erup­tion might di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly be the cause.

“Yes, and no,” an­swered Cyrus Hard­ing.

“Nev­er­the­less,” con­tin­ued the re­porter, “would not the great­est mis­for­tune which could hap­pen to us be an earth­quake which would over­turn the is­land? Now, I do not sup­pose that this is to be feared, since the va­pors and la­va have found a free out­let.”

“True,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “and I do not fear an earth­quake in the sense in which the term is com­mon­ly ap­plied to con­vul­sions of the soil pro­voked by the ex­pan­sion of sub­ter­ranean gas­es. But oth­er caus­es may pro­duce great dis­as­ters.”

“How so, my dear Cyrus?’

“I am not cer­tain. I must con­sid­er. I must vis­it the moun­tain. In a few days I shall learn more on this point.”

Gideon Spilett said no more, and soon, in spite of the ex­plo­sions of the vol­cano, whose in­ten­si­ty in­creased, and which were re­peat­ed by the echoes of the is­land, the in­hab­itants of Gran­ite House were sleep­ing sound­ly.

Three days passed by–the 4th, 5th, and 6th of Jan­uary. The con­struc­tion of the ves­sel was dili­gent­ly con­tin­ued, and with­out of­fer­ing fur­ther ex­pla­na­tions the en­gi­neer pushed for­ward the work with all his en­er­gy. Mount Franklin was now hood­ed by a somber cloud of sin­is­ter as­pect, and, amid the flames, vom­it­ing forth in­can­des­cent rocks, some of which fell back in­to the crater it­self. This caused Pen­croft, who would on­ly look at the mat­ter in the light of a joke, to ex­claim,–

“Ah! the gi­ant is play­ing at cup and ball; he is a con­jur­er.”

In fact, the sub­stances thrown up fell back again in to the abyss, and it did not seem that the la­va, though swollen by the in­ter­nal pres­sure, had yet risen to the ori­fice of the crater. At any rate, the open­ing on the north­east, which was part­ly vis­ible, poured out no tor­rent up­on the north­ern slope of the moun­tain.

Nev­er­the­less, how­ev­er press­ing was the con­struc­tion of the ves­sel, oth­er du­ties de­mand­ed the pres­ence of the colonists on var­ious por­tions of the is­land. Be­fore ev­ery­thing it was nec­es­sary to go to the cor­ral, where the flocks of mus­mons and goats were en­closed, and re­plen­ish the pro­vi­sion of for­age for those an­imals. It was ac­cord­ing­ly ar­ranged that Ayr­ton should pro­ceed thith­er the next day, the 7th of Jan­uary; and as he was suf­fi­cient for the task, to which he was ac­cus­tomed, Pen­croft and the rest were some­what sur­prised on hear­ing the en­gi­neer say to Ayr­ton–

“As you are go­ing to-​mor­row to the cor­ral I will ac­com­pa­ny you.”

“But, Cap­tain Hard­ing,” ex­claimed the sailor, “our work­ing days will not be many, and if you go al­so we shall be two pair of hands short!”

“We shall re­turn to-​mor­row,” replied Cyrus Hard­ing, “but it is nec­es­sary that I should go to the cor­ral. I must learn how the erup­tion is pro­gress­ing.”

“The erup­tion! al­ways the erup­tion!” an­swered Pen­croft, with an air of dis­con­tent. “An im­por­tant thing, tru­ly, this erup­tion! I trou­ble my­self very lit­tle about it.”

What­ev­er might be the sailor’s opin­ion, the ex­pe­di­tion pro­ject­ed by the en­gi­neer was set­tled for the next day. Her­bert wished to ac­com­pa­ny Cyrus Hard­ing, but he would not vex Pen­croft by his ab­sence.

The next day, at dawn, Cyrus Hard­ing and Ayr­ton, mount­ing the cart drawn by two on­agers, took the road to the cor­ral and set off at a round trot.

Above the for­est were pass­ing large clouds, to which the crater of Mount Franklin in­ces­sant­ly added fulig­inous mat­ter. These clouds, which rolled heav­ily in the air, were ev­ident­ly com­posed of het­ero­ge­neous sub­stances. It was not alone from the vol­cano that they de­rived their strange opac­ity and weight. Sco­ri­ae, in a state of dust, like pow­dered pumice-​stone, and gray­ish ash­es as small as the finest fec­ulae, were held in sus­pen­sion in the midst of their thick folds. These ash­es are so fine that they have been ob­served in the air for whole months. Af­ter the erup­tion of 1783 in Ice­land for up­wards of a year the at­mo­sphere was thus charged with vol­canic dust through which the rays of the sun were on­ly with dif­fi­cul­ty dis­cernible.

But more of­ten this pul­ver­ized mat­ter falls, and this hap­pened on the present oc­ca­sion. Cyrus Hard­ing and Ayr­ton had scarce­ly reached the cor­ral when a sort of black snow like fine gun­pow­der fell, and in­stant­ly changed the ap­pear­ance of the soil. Trees, mead­ows, all dis­ap­peared be­neath a cov­er­ing sev­er­al inch­es in depth. But, very for­tu­nate­ly, the wind blew from the north­east, and the greater part of the cloud dis­solved it­self over the sea.

“This is very sin­gu­lar, Cap­tain Hard­ing,” said Ayr­ton.

“It is very se­ri­ous,” replied the en­gi­neer. “This pow­dered pumice-​stone, all this min­er­al dust, proves how grave is the con­vul­sion go­ing for­ward in the low­er depths of the vol­cano.”

“But can noth­ing be done?”

“Noth­ing, ex­cept to note the progress of the phe­nomenon. Do you, there­fore, Ayr­ton, oc­cu­py your­self with the nec­es­sary work at the cor­ral. In the mean­time I will as­cend just be­yond the source of Red Creek and ex­am­ine the con­di­tion of the moun­tain up­on its north­ern as­pect. Then–“

“Well, Cap­tain Hard­ing?”

“Then we will pay a vis­it to Dakkar Grot­to. I wish to in­spect it. At any rate I will come back for you in two hours.”

Ayr­ton then pro­ceed­ed to en­ter the cor­ral, and, while await­ing the en­gi­neer’s re­turn, bus­ied him­self with the mus­mons and goats which seemed to feel a cer­tain un­easi­ness in pres­ence of these first signs of an erup­tion.

Mean­while Cyrus Hard­ing as­cend­ed the crest of the east­ern spur, passed Red Creek, and ar­rived at the spot where he and his com­pan­ions had dis­cov­ered a sul­phurous spring at the time of their first ex­plo­ration.

How changed was ev­ery­thing! In­stead of a sin­gle col­umn of smoke he count­ed thir­teen, forced through the soil as if vi­olent­ly pro­pelled by some pis­ton. It was ev­ident that the crust of the earth was sub­ject­ed in this part of the globe to a fright­ful pres­sure. The at­mo­sphere was sat­urat­ed with gas­es and car­bon­ic acid, min­gled with aque­ous va­pors. Cyrus Hard­ing felt the vol­canic tu­fa with which the plain was strewn, and which was but pul­ver­ized cin­ders hard­ened in­to sol­id blocks by time, trem­ble be­neath him, but he could dis­cov­er no traces of fresh la­va.

The en­gi­neer be­came more as­sured of this when he ob­served all the north­ern part of Mount Franklin. Pil­lars of smoke and flame es­caped from the crater; a hail of sco­ri­ae fell on the ground; but no cur­rent of la­va burst from the mouth of the vol­cano, which proved that the vol­canic mat­ter had not yet at­tained the lev­el of the su­pe­ri­or ori­fice of the cen­tral shaft.

“But I would pre­fer that it were so,” said Cyrus Hard­ing to him­self. “At any rate, I should then know that the la­va had fol­lowed its ac­cus­tomed track. who can say that it may not take a new course? But the dan­ger does not con­sist in that! Cap­tain Nemo fore­saw it clear­ly! No, the dan­ger does not lie there!”

Cyrus Hard­ing ad­vanced to­wards the enor­mous cause­way whose pro­lon­ga­tion en­closed the nar­row Shark Gulf. He could now suf­fi­cient­ly ex­am­ine on this side the an­cient chan­nels of the la­va. There was no doubt in his mind that the most re­cent erup­tion had oc­curred at a far-​dis­tant epoch.

He then re­turned by the same way, lis­ten­ing at­ten­tive­ly to the sub­ter­ranean mut­ter­ings which rolled like long-​con­tin­ued thun­der, in­ter­rupt­ed by deaf­en­ing ex­plo­sions. At nine in the morn­ing he reached the cor­ral.

Ayr­ton await­ed him.

“The an­imals are cared for, Cap­tain Hard­ing,” said Ayr­ton.

“Good, Ayr­ton.”

“They seem un­easy, Cap­tain Hard­ing.”

“Yes, in­stinct speaks through them, and in­stinct is nev­er de­ceived.”

“Are you ready?”

“Take a lamp, Ayr­ton,” an­swered the en­gi­neer; “we will start at once.”

Ayr­ton did as de­sired. The on­agers, un­har­nessed, roamed in the cor­ral. The gate was se­cured on the out­side, and Cyrus Hard­ing, pre­ced­ing Ayr­ton, took the nar­row path which led west­ward to the shore.

The soil they walked up­on was choked with the pul­ver­ized mat­ter fall­en from the cloud. No quadruped ap­peared in the woods. Even the birds had fled. Some­times a pass­ing breeze raised the cov­er­ing of ash­es, and the two colonists, en­veloped in a whirl­wind of dust, lost sight of each oth­er. They were then care­ful to cov­er their eyes and mouths with hand­ker­chiefs, for they ran the risk of be­ing blind­ed and suf­fo­cat­ed.

It was im­pos­si­ble for Cyrus Hard­ing and Ayr­ton, with these im­ped­iments, to make rapid progress. More­over, the at­mo­sphere was close, as if the oxy­gen had been part­ly burned up, and had be­come un­fit for res­pi­ra­tion. At ev­ery hun­dred paces they were obliged to stop to take breath. It was there­fore past ten o’clock when the en­gi­neer and his com­pan­ion reached the crest of the enor­mous mass of rocks of basalt and por­phyry which com­posed the north­west coast of the is­land.

Ayr­ton and Cyrus Hard­ing com­menced the de­scent of this abrupt de­cliv­ity, fol­low­ing al­most step for step the dif­fi­cult path which, dur­ing that stormy night, had led them to Dakkar Grot­to. In open day the de­scent was less per­ilous, and, be­sides, the bed of ash­es which cov­ered the pol­ished sur­face of the rock en­abled them to make their foot­ing more se­cure.

The ridge at the end of the shore, about forty feet in height, was soon reached. Cyrus Hard­ing rec­ol­lect­ed that this el­eva­tion grad­ual­ly sloped to­wards the lev­el of the sea. Al­though the tide was at present low, no beach could he seen, and the waves, thick­ened by the vol­canic dust, beat up­on the basaltic rocks.

Cyrus Hard­ing and Ayr­ton found with­out dif­fi­cul­ty the en­trance to Dakkar Grot­to, and paused for a mo­ment at the last rock be­fore it.

“The iron boat should be there,” said the en­gi­neer.

“It is here, Cap­tain Hard­ing,” replied Ayr­ton, draw­ing to­wards him the frag­ile craft, which was pro­tect­ed by the arch of the vault.

“On board, Ayr­ton!”

The two colonists stepped in­to the boat. A slight un­du­la­tion of the waves car­ried it far­ther un­der the low arch of the crypt, and there Ayr­ton, with the aid of flint and steel, light­ed the lamp. He then took the oars, and the lamp hav­ing been placed in the bow of the boat, so that its rays fell be­fore them, Cyrus Hard­ing took the helm and steered through the shades of the grot­to.

The “Nau­tilus” was there no longer to il­lu­mi­nate the cav­ern with its elec­tric light. Pos­si­bly it might not yet be ex­tin­guished, but no ray es­caped from the depths of the abyss in which re­posed all that was mor­tal of Cap­tain Nemo.

The light af­ford­ed by the lamp, al­though fee­ble, nev­er­the­less en­abled the en­gi­neer to ad­vance slow­ly, fol­low­ing the wall of the cav­ern. A death­like si­lence reigned un­der the vault­ed roof, or at least in the an­te­ri­or por­tion, for soon Cyrus Hard­ing dis­tinct­ly heard the rum­bling which pro­ceed­ed from the bow­els of the moun­tain.

“That comes from the vol­cano,” he said.

Be­sides these sounds, the pres­ence of chem­ical com­bi­na­tions was soon be­trayed by their pow­er­ful odor, and the en­gi­neer and his com­pan­ion were al­most suf­fo­cat­ed by sul­phurous va­pors.

“This is what Cap­tain Nemo feared,” mur­mured Cyrus Hard­ing, chang­ing coun­te­nance. “We must go to the end, notwith­stand­ing.”

“For­ward!” replied Ayr­ton, bend­ing to his oars and di­rect­ing the boat to­wards the head of the cav­ern.

Twen­ty-​five min­utes af­ter en­ter­ing the mouth of the grot­to the boat reached the ex­treme end.

Cyrus Hard­ing then, stand­ing up, cast the light of the lamp up­on the walls of the cav­ern which sep­arat­ed it from the cen­tral shaft of the vol­cano. What was the thick­ness of this wall? It might be ten feet or a hun­dred feet–it was im­pos­si­ble to say. But the sub­ter­ranean sounds were too per­cep­ti­ble to al­low of the sup­po­si­tion that it was of any great thick­ness.

The en­gi­neer, af­ter hav­ing ex­plored the wall at a cer­tain height hor­izon­tal­ly, fas­tened the lamp to the end of an oar, and again sur­veyed the basaltic wall at a greater el­eva­tion.

There, through scarce­ly vis­ible clefts and join­ings, es­caped a pun­gent va­por, which in­fect­ed the at­mo­sphere of the cav­ern. The wall was bro­ken by large cracks, some of which ex­tend­ed to with­in two or three feet of the wa­ter’s edge.

Cyrus Hard­ing thought for a brief space. Then he said in a low voice,–

“Yes! the cap­tain was right! The dan­ger lies there, and a ter­ri­ble dan­ger!”

Ayr­ton said not a word, but, up­on a sign from Cyrus Hard­ing, re­sumed the oars, and half an hour lat­er the en­gi­neer and he reached the en­trance of Dakkar Grot­to.