e of the
waters.

That must be done quickly.

Nearly half a minute passed away. Dick Sand then thought that Bat had
succeeded in passing outside when the black emerged.

"Well!" exclaimed Dick Sand.

"The hole is stopped up by rubbish!" replied Bat, as soon as he could
take breath.

"Stopped up!" repeated Tom.

"Yes," replied Bat. "The water has probably diluted the clay. I have
felt around the walls with my hand. There is no longer any hole."

Dick Sand shook his head. His companions and he were hermetically
sequestered in this cone, perhaps submerged by the water.

"If there is no longer any hole," then said Hercules, "we must make
one."

"Wait," replied the young novice, stopping Hercules, who, hatchet in
hand, was preparing to dive.

Dick Sand reflected for a few moments, and then he said:

"We are going to proceed in another manner. The whole question is to
know whether the water covers the ant-hill or not. If we make a small
opening at the summit of the cone, we shall find out which it is. But
in case the ant-hill should be submerged now, the water would fill it
entirely, and we would be lost. Let us feel our way."

"But quickly," replied Tom.

In fact, the level continued to rise gradually. There were then six
feet of water inside the cone. With the exception of Mrs. Weldon,
her son, Cousin Benedict, and Nan, who had taken refuge in the upper
cavities, all were immersed to the waist.

Then there was a necessity for quick action, as Dick Sand proposed.

It was one foot above the interior level, consequently seven feet from
the ground, that Dick Sand resolved to pierce a hole in the clay wall.

If, by this hole, they were in communication with the outer air, the
cone emerges. If, on the contrary, this hole was pierced below the
water level outside, the air would be driven inward, and in that case
they must stop it up at once, or the water would rise to its orifice.
Then they would commence again a foot higher, and so on. If, at last,
at the top, they did not yet find the outer air, it was because there
was a depth of more than fifteen feet of water in the plain, and that
the whole termite village had disappeared under the inundation. Then
what chance had the prisoners in the ant-hill to escape the most
terrible of deaths, death by slow asphyxia?

Dick Sand knew all that, but he did not lose his presence of mind for
a moment. He had closely calculated the consequences of the experiment
he wish