these missiles, nor protect the stone, which flew in splinters around them. There was nothing to be done but to take refuge in the upper passage of Granite House, and leave their dwelling to be devastated, when a deep roar was heard, followed by frightful cries!
Cyrus Harding and his companions rushed to one of the windows.
The brig, irresistibly raised on a sort of water-spout, had just split in two, and in less than ten seconds she was swallowed up with all her criminal crew!
CHAPTER IV
AN INEXPLAINABLE EXPLANATION
"She has blown up!" cried Herbert.
"Yes! blown up, just as if Ayrton had set fire to the powder!" returned Pencroft, throwing himself into the lift together with Neb and the lad.
"But what has happened?" asked Gideon Spilett, quite stunned by this unexpected catastrophe.
"Oh! this time, we shall know———" answered the engineer quickly.
"What shall we know———?"
"Later! later! Come, Spilett. The main point is that these pirates have been exterminated!"
And Harding, hurrying away, the reporter and Ayrton joined Pencroft, Neb, and Herbert on the beach.
Nothing could be seen of the brig, not even her masts. After having been raised by the water-spout, she had fallen on her side, and had sunk in that position, doubtless in consequence of some enormous leak. But as in that place the channel was not more than twenty feet in depth, the sides of the submerged brig must reappear at low water.
A few things from the wreck floated on the surface of the water. A raft could be seen consisting of spare spars, coops of poultry with their occupants still living, boxes and barrels, which gradually came to the surface, after having escaped through the hatchways, but no pieces of the wreck appeared, neither planks from the deck, nor timber from the hull—which rendered the sudden disappearance of the Speedy perfectly inexplicable.
