ction of the heat was here capable of fissure)
the stream of burning lava was diverted into several new channels, where
it could be available for daily use; and thus Mochel, the _Dobryna's_
cook, was furnished with an admirable kitchen, provided with a permanent
stove, where he was duly installed with all his culinary apparatus.

"What a saving of expense it would be," exclaimed Ben Zoof, "if every
household could be furnished with its own private volcano!"

The large cavern at the general junction of the galleries was fitted up
as a drawing-room, and arranged with all the best furniture both of the
gourbi and of the cabin of the _Dobryna_. Hither was also brought the
schooner's library, containing a good variety of French and Russian
books; lamps were suspended over the different tables; and the walls of
the apartment were tapestried with the sails and adorned with the flags
belonging to the yacht. The curtain of fire extending over the opening
of the cavern provided it, as already stated, with light and heat.

The torrent of lava fell into a small rock-bound basin that had no
apparent communication with the sea, and was evidently the aperture of
a deep abyss, of which the waters, heated by the descent of the eruptive
matter, would no doubt retain their liquid condition long after the
Gallian Sea had become a sheet of ice.

A small excavation to the left of the common hall was allotted for
the special use of Servadac and the count; another on the right was
appropriated to the lieutenant and Ben Zoof; whilst a third recess,
immediately at the back, made a convenient little chamber for Nina. The
Spaniards and the Russian sailors took up their sleeping-quarters in the
adjacent galleries, and found the temperature quite comfortable.

Such were the internal arrangements of Nina's Hive, the refuge where
the little colony were full of hope that they would be able to brave
the rigors of the stern winter-time that lay before them--a winter-time
during which Gallia might possibly be projected even to the orbit of
Jupiter, where the temperature would not exceed one twenty-fifth of the
normal winter temperature of the earth.

The only discontented spirit was Isaac Hakkabut. Throughout all the
preparations which roused even the Spaniards to activity, the Jew,
still incredulous and deaf to every representation of the true state of
things, insisted upon remaining in the creek at Gourbi Island; nothing
could induce him to leave h