ppeared a narrow ridge, running horizontally and parallel with
the sea. The settlers followed the wire along it. They had not gone a
hundred paces when the ridge by a moderate incline sloped down to the
level of the sea.

The engineer seized the wire and found that it disappeared beneath the
waves.

His companions were stupefied.

A cry of disappointment, 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 grand and 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
reconnoitre.

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 certain 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 o