ing the eleven ensuing years?

On the whole, it was more endurable than might have been supposed.
The natural products of an extremely fertile soil and the presence
of a certain number of domestic animals secured them against want of
food; they had only to make out the best shelter for themselves they
could contrive, and wait for an opportunity of getting away from the
island with as much patience as might be granted to them. And from
whence could such an opportunity come? Only from one of the chances
within the resources of Providence.

Captain William Guy, Patterson, and their five companions descended
the ravine, which was half filled with the fallen masses of the
hill-face, amid heaps of scoria and blocks of black granite. Before
they left this gorge, it occurred to William Guy to explore the
fissure on the right into which Arthur Pym, Dirk Peters, and Allen
had turned, but he found it blocked up; it was impossible for him to
get into the pass. Thus he remained in ignorance of the existence of
the natural or artificial labyrinth which corresponded with the one
he had just left, and probably communicated with it under the dry
bed of the torrent. The little company, having passed the chaotic
barrier that intercepted the northern route, proceded rapidly
towards the north-west. There, on the coast, at about three miles
from Klock-Klock, they established themselves in a grotto very like
that in our own occupation on the coast of Halbrane Land.

And it was in this place that, during long, hopeless years, the
seven survivors of the fane lived, as we were about to do ourselves,
but under better conditions, for the fertility of the soil of Tsalal
furnished them with resources unknown in Halbrane Land. In reality,
we were condemned to perish when our provisions should be exhausted,
but they could have waited indefinitely--and they did wait.

They had never entertained any doubt that Arthur Pym, Dirk Peters,
and Allen had perished, and this was only too true in Allen's
case. How, indeed, could they ever have imagined that Pyro and the
half-breed had got hold of a boat and made their escape from Tsalal
Island?

So, then, as William Guy told us, not an incident occurred to break
the monotony of that existence of eleven years--not even the
reappearance of the islanders, who were kept away from Tsalal by
superstitious terror. No danger had threatened them during all that
time; but, of course, as it became more and more prolo