The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne (beach read .txt) 📗

moderate size. Drops of water fell from the roof, but they did not ooze through the rocks, they were simply the last traces of the torrent which had so long roared through this place, and the air, though humid, emitted no mephitic vapor.

“Well, Cyrus,” said Spilett, “here is a retreat sufficiently unknown and hidden in the depths, but it is uninhabitable.”

“How, uninhabitable?” asked the sailor.

“Why, it is too small and too dark.”

“Cannot we make it bigger, blast it out, and make openings for the light and air?” answered Pencroff, who now thought nothing impracticable.

“Let us push on,” said Smith. “Perhaps lower down, nature will have spared us this work.”

“We are only a third of the way down,” observed Herbert.

“But a hundred feet,” responded Cyrus; “and it is possible that a hundred feet lower⁠—”

“Where is Top?” asked Neb, interrupting his master.

They looked about the cavern. The dog was not there.

“Let us overtake him,” said Smith, resuming the march. The engineer noted carefully all the deviations of the route, and easily kept a general idea of their direction, which was towards the sea. The party had not descended more than fifty feet further, when their attention was arrested by distant sounds coming from the depths of the rock. They stopped and listened. These sounds, borne along the passage, as the voice through an acoustic tube, were distinctly heard.

“Its Top’s barking!” cried Herbert.

“Yes, and the brave dog is barking furiously,” added Pencroff.

“We have our spears,” said Smith. “Come on, and be ready.”

“It is becoming more and more interesting,” whispered Spilett to the sailor, who nodded assent.

They hurried to the rescue of the dog. His barks grew more distinct. They could hear that he was in a strange rage. Had he been captured by some animal whom he had disturbed? Without thinking of the danger, the colonists felt themselves drawn on by an irresistible curiosity, and slipped rather than ran down the passage. Sixteen feet lower they came up with the dog.

There, the corridor opened out into a vast and magnificent cavern. Top, rushing about, was barking furiously. Pencroff and Neb, shaking their torches, lit up all the inequalities of the granite, and the others, with their spears ready, held themselves prepared for any emergency.

But the enormous cavern was empty. The colonists searched everywhere; they could find no living thing. Nevertheless, Top continued barking, and neither threats nor caresses could stop him.

“There must be some place where the water escaped to the sea,” said the engineer.

“Yes, and look out for a hole,” answered Pencroff.

“On, Top, on,” cried Smith, and the dog, encouraged by his master, ran towards the end of the cavern, and redoubled his barking.

Following him, they saw by the light of the torches the opening of what looked like a well in the granite. Here, undoubtedly, was the place where the water had found its way out of the cavern, but this time, instead of being a corridor sloping and accessible, it was a perpendicular well, impossible to descend.

The torches were waved above the opening. They saw nothing. Smith broke off a burning branch and dropped it into the abyss. The resin, fanned by the wind of its fall, burned brightly and illuminated the interior of the pit, but showed nothing else. Then the flame was extinguished with a slight hiss, which indicated that it had reached the water, which must be the sea level.

The engineer calculated, from the time taken in the fall, that the depth was about ninety feet. The floor of the cavern was therefore that distance above the sea.

“Here is our house,” said Smith.

“But it was preoccupied,” said Spilett, whose curiosity was unsatisfied.

“Well, the thing that had it, whether amphibious or not, has fled by this outlet and vacated in our favor,” replied the engineer.

“Anyhow, I should like to have been Top a quarter of an hour ago,” said the sailor, “for he does not bark at nothing.”

Smith looked at his dog, and those who were near him heard him murmur:⁠—

“Yes, I am convinced that Top knows more than we do about many things!”

However, the wishes of the colonists had been in a great measure realized. Chance, aided by the marvelous acuteness of their chief, had done them good service. Here they had at their disposal a vast cavern, whose extent could not be estimated. In the insufficient light of the torches, but which could certainly be easily partitioned off with bricks into chambers, and arranged, if not as a house, at least as a spacious suite of rooms. The water, having left it, could not return. The place was free.

But two difficulties remained, the possibility of lighting the cavern and the necessity of rendering it easier of access. The first could not be done from above as the enormous mass of granite was over them; but, perhaps, they would be able to pierce the outer wall which faced the sea. Smith, who during the descent had kept account of the slope, and therefore of the length of the passage, believed that this part of the wall could not be very thick. If light could be thus obtained, so could entrance, as it was as easy to pierce a door as windows, and to fix a ladder on the outside.

Smith communicated his ideas to his companions.

“Then let us set to work!” answered Pencroff; “I have my pick and will I soon make daylight in the granite! Where shall I begin?”

“Here,” answered the engineer, showing the strong sailor a considerable hollow in the wall, which greatly diminished its thickness.

Pencroff attacked the granite, and for half an hour, by the light of the torches, made the splinters fly about him. Then Neb took his place, and Spilett after Neb. The work continued, two hours longer, and, when it seemed as if the wall could not be thicker than the length of the pick, at the last stroke of Spilett the implement, passing through, fell on the outside.

“Hurrah forever!” cried Pencroff.

The wall was but three feet thick.

Smith looked through the opening,