“Who was here last?” asked the engineer.
“I, sir,” answered Ayrton.
“And that was—”
“Four days ago.”
“Ah! here is something!” exclaimed Herbert, pointing to a paper lying on the table.
On the paper were these words, written in English:—
“Follow the new wire.”
“Come on!” cried Smith, who comprehended in a moment that the dispatch had not been sent from the corral, but from the mysterious abode which the new wire united directly with Granite House.
Neb took the lantern and all left the corral.
Then the storm broke forth with extreme violence. Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder followed in rapid succession. The island was the centre of the storm. By the flashes of lightning they could see the summit of Mount Franklin enshrouded in smoke.
There were no telegraph poles inside the corral, but the engineer, having passed the gate, ran to the nearest post, and saw there a new wire fastened to the insulator, and reaching to the ground.
“Here it is!” he cried.
The wire lay along the ground, and was covered with some insulating substance, like the submarine cables. By its direction it seemed as if it went towards the west, across the woods, and the southern spurs of the mountain.
“Let us follow it,” said Smith.
And sometimes by the light of the lantern, sometimes by the illumination of the heavens, the colonists followed the way indicated by the thread.
They crossed in the first place, the spur of the mountain between the valley of the corral and that of Fall River, which stream was crossed in its narrowest part. The wire, sometimes hanging on the lower branches of the trees, sometimes trailing along the ground, was a sure guide.
The engineer had thought that, perhaps, the wire would end at the bottom of the valley, and that the unknown retreat was there.
But not so. It extended over the southwestern spur and descended to the arid plateau which ended that fantastic wall of basalt. Every now and then one or other of the party stooped and took the direction of the wire. There could be no doubt that it ran directly to the sea. There, doubtless, in some profound chasm in the igneous rocks, was the dwelling so vainly sought for until now.
At a few minutes before ten, the colonists arrived upon the high coast overhanging the ocean. Here the wire wound among the rocks, following a steep slope down a narrow ravine.
The colonists followed it, at the risk of bringing down upon themselves a shower of rocks or of being precipitated into the sea. The descent was extremely perilous, but they thought not of the danger; they were attracted to this mysterious place as the needle is drawn to the magnet.
At length, the wire making a sudden turn, touched the shore rocks, which were beaten by the sea. The colonists had reached the base of the granite wall.
Here there was a narrow projection running parallel and horizontal to the sea. The thread led along this point, and the colonists followed. They had not proceeded more than a hundred paces, when this projection, by a south inclination, sloped down into the water.
The engineer seized the wire and saw that it led down into the sea.
His companions stood, stupefied, beside him.
Then a cry of disappointment, almost of despair, escaped them! Must they throw themselves into the water and search some submarine cavern? In their present state of excitement, they would not have hesitated to have done it.
An observation made by the engineer stopped them. He led his companions to the shelter of a pile of rocks and said:—
“Let as wait here. The tide is up. At low water the road will be open.”
“But how do you think—” began Pencroff.
“He would not have called us, unless the means of reaching him had been provided.”
Smith had spoken with an air of conviction, and, moreover, his observation was logical. It was, indeed, quite possible that an opening existed at low water which was covered at present.
It was necessary to wait some hours. The colonists rested in silence under their shelter. The rain began to fall in torrents. The echoes repeated the roaring of the thunder in sonorous reverberations.
At midnight the engineer took the lantern and went down to the water’s edge. It was still two hours before low tide.
Smith had not been mistaken. The entrance to a vast excavation began to be visible, and the wire, turning at a right angle, entered this yawning mouth.
Smith returned to his companions and said:—
“In an hour the opening will be accessible.”
“Then there is one,” said Pencroff.
“Do you doubt it?” replied Smith.
“But it will be half full of water,” said Herbert.
“Either it will be perfectly dry,” answered the engineer, “in which case we will walk, or it will not be dry, and some means of transport will be furnished us.”
An hour passed. All went down through the rain to the sea. In these hours the tide had fallen fifteen feet. The top of the mouth of the opening rose eight feet above the water, like the arch of a bridge.
Looking in, the engineer saw a black object floating on the surface. He drew it toward him. It was a canoe made of sheet-iron bolted together. It was tied to a projecting rock inside the cavern wall. A pair of oars were under the seats.
“Get in,” said Smith.
The colonists entered the boat, Neb and Ayrton took the oars, Pencroff the tiller, and Smith, in the bows holding the lantern, lit the way.
The vault, at first very low, rose suddenly; but the darkness was too great for them to recognize the size of this cavern, its height and depth. An imposing silence reigned throughout this granite chamber. No sound, not even the pealing of the thunder penetrated its massive walls.
In certain parts of the world there are immense caves, a sort of natural crypts which date back to the geologic epoch. Some are invaded by the sea; others contain large lakes within their walls. Such is Fingal’s Cave, in
