ment, almost a cry of despair, escaped them! Must they then plunge beneath the water and seek there for some submarine cavern? In their excited state they would not have hesitated to do it.
The engineer stopped them. He led his companions to a hollow in the rocks, and there, "We must wait," said he. "The tide is high. At low water the way will be open."
"But what can make you think———" asked Pencroft.
"He would not have called us if the means had been wanting to enable us to reach him!"
Cyrus Harding spoke in a tone of such thorough conviction that no objection was raised. His remark, besides, was logical. It was quite possible that an opening, practicable at low water, though hidden now by the high tide, opened at the foot of the cliff.
There was some time to wait. The colonists remained silently crouching in a deep hollow. Rain now began to fall in torrents. The thunder was re-echoed among the rocks with a grand sonorousness. The colonists' emotion was great. A thousand strange and extraordinary ideas crossed their brains, and they expected some superhuman apparition, which alone could come up to the notion they had formed of the mysterious genius of the island.
At midnight, Harding, carrying the lantern, descended to the beach to reconnoiter. The engineer was not mistaken. The beginning of an immense excavation could be seen under the water. There the wire, bending at a right angle, entered the yawning gulf.
Cyrus Harding returned to his companions, and said simply, "In an hour the opening will be practicable."
"It is there, then?" said Pencroft.
"Did you doubt it?" returned Harding.
"But this cavern must be filled with water to a cetrain height," observed Herbert.
"Either the cavern will be completely dry," replied Harding, "and in that case we can traverse it on foot, or it will not be dry, and some means of transport will be put at our disposal."
An hour passed. All climbed down through the rain to the level of the sea. There was now eight feet of the opening above the water. It was like the arch of a bridge, under which rushed the foaming water.
