and Captain Spade are filled with an anxiety that they vainly
essay to dissemble. They hold frequent conferences together. Maybe
they discuss the advisability of quitting Back Cup with their wealth,
for they are aware that if the existence of the cavern is known means
will be found to reduce it, even if the inmates have to be starved
out.

This is, of course, mere conjecture on my part. What is essential to
me is that they do not suspect me of having launched the keg that
was so providentially picked up at Bermuda. Never, I must say, has
Engineer Serko ever made any allusion to any such probability. No, I
am not even suspected. If the contrary were the case I am sufficiently
acquainted with Ker Karraje to know that he would long ago have sent
me to rejoin Lieutenant Davon and the _Sword_ at the bottom of the
lagoon.

The winter tempests have set in with a vengeance. The wind howls
though the hole in the roof, and rude gusts sweep through the forest
of pillars producing sonorous sounds, so sonorous, so deep, that one
might sometimes almost fancy they were produced by the firing of the
guns of a squadron. Flocks of seabirds take refuge in the cavern from
the gale, and at intervals, when it lulls, almost deafen us with their
screaming.

It is to be presumed that in such weather the schooner will make no
attempt to put to sea, for the stock of provisions is ample enough to
last all the season. Moreover, I imagine the Count d'Artigas will not
be so eager in future to show his _Ebba_ along the American
coast, where he risks being received, not, as hitherto, with the
consideration due to a wealthy yachtsman, but in the manner Ker
Karraje so richly merits.

It occurs to me that if the apparition of the _Sword_ was the
commencement of a campaign against the island, a question of great
moment relative to the future of Back Cup arises.

Therefore, one day, prudently, so as not to excite any suspicion, I
ventured to pump Engineer Serko about it.

We were in the neighborhood of Thomas Roch's laboratory, and had
been conversing for some time, when Engineer Serko touched upon the
extraordinary apparition of an English submarine boat in the lagoon.
On this occasion he seemed to incline to the view that it might have
been a premeditated expedition against Ker Karraje.

"That is not my opinion," I replied, in order to bring him to the
question that I wanted to put to him.

"Why?" he demanded.

"Because if your retreat were