of intense excitement. I scarcely dared believe what
the eider-duck hunter was about to do. It was, however, impossible in a
moment more not to both understand and applaud, and even to smother him
in my embraces, when I saw him raise the heavy crowbar and commence an
attack upon the rock itself.

"Saved!" I cried.

"Yes," cried my uncle, even more excited and delighted than myself;
"Hans is quite right. Oh, the worthy, excellent man! We should never
have thought of such an idea."

And nobody else, I think, would have done so. Such a process, simple as
it seemed, would most certainly not have entered our heads. Nothing
could be more dangerous than to begin to work with pickaxes in that
particular part of the globe. Supposing while he was at work a break-up
were to take place, and supposing the torrent once having gained an inch
were to take an ell, and come pouring bodily through the broken rock!

Not one of these dangers was chimerical. They were only too real. But at
that moment no fear of falling in of the roof, or even of inundation was
capable of stopping us. Our thirst was so intense that to quench it we
would have dug below the bed of old Ocean itself.

Hans went quietly to work--a work which neither my uncle nor I would
have undertaken at any price. Our impatience was so great that if we had
once begun with pickax and crowbar, the rock would soon have split into
a hundred fragments. The guide, on the contrary, calm, ready, moderate,
wore away the hard rock by little steady blows of his instrument, making
no attempt at a larger hole than about six inches. As I stood, I heard,
or I thought I heard, the roar of the torrent momentarily increasing in
loudness, and at times I almost felt the pleasant sensation of water
upon my parched lips.

At the end of what appeared an age, Hans had made a hole which enabled
his crowbar to enter two feet into the solid rock. He had been at work
exactly an hour. It appeared a dozen. I was getting wild with
impatience. My uncle began to think of using more violent measures. I
had the greatest difficulty in checking him. He had indeed just got hold
of his crowbar when a loud and welcome hiss was heard. Then a stream, or
rather jet, of water burst through the wall and came out with such force
as to hit the opposite side!

Hans, the guide, who was half upset by the shock, was scarcely able to
keep down a cry of pain and grief. I understood his meaning when,
plunging my hands into