The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest was to obtain a refuge below ground, and _that_ was denied them by the strange and impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour the sun's disc was lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday some faint radiance and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the painfulness of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.
Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count scoured the island in search of some available retreat.
Scarcely a yard of ground was left unexplored, the horses clearing every obstacle as if they were, like Pegasus, furnished with wings.
But all in vain. Soundings were made again and again, but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard as adamant, never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surface of the ground.
The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless, there seemed nothing to be done except to try and render the buildings alongside the gourbi impervious to frost.
To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders were given to collect every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the island produced;and this involved the necessity of felling the numerous trees that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might at the accumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his companions could not resist the conviction that the consumption of a very short period would exhaust the total stock.
And what would happen then?
Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious that the rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by his own uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, racking his brain for an idea that would point the way out of the serious difficulty.
But still all in vain.
One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had no plan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments'
pondering, said: "Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we would get shelter in the charming stone-quarries.""Idiot!" replied the captain, angrily, "if we were at Montmartre, you don't suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?"But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to secure were at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself.
It was on the 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope started off once more to investigate the northwest corner of the island;on their way their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject of the dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them.
A discussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the two men were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that ought to be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirely new abode must be sought, while the lieutenant was equally bent upon devising a method of some sort by which their present quarters might be rendered sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of his argument, Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if to dispel a mist, and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towards the south.
"What is that?" he said, with a kind of hesitation. "No, I am not mistaken,"he added; "it is a light on the horizon.""A light!" exclaimed Servadac; "show me where.""Look there!" answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck in the distance.
It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening.
"Can it be a ship?" asked the captain.
"If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able to see it so far off," replied Procope.
"It does not move," said Servadac; "and unless I am greatly deceived, I can hear a kind of reverberation in the air."For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears in rapt attention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac's mind.
"The volcano!" he cried; "may it not be the volcano that we saw, whilst we were on board the _Dobryna?_"The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.
"Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the captain, and he went on in the tones of a keen excitement: "Nature has provided us with our winter quarters; the stream of burning lava that is flowing there is the gift of a bounteous Providence;it will provide us all the warmth we need. No time to lose!
To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow we will explore it all;no doubt the life, the heat we want is reserved for us in the heart and bowels of our own Gallia!"Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm, Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly he remembered the long promontory which had barred the _Dobryna's_ progress while coasting the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged her to ascend northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; he remembered also that at the extremity of the promontory there was a rocky headland crowned with smoke;and now he was convinced that he was right in identifying the position, and in believing that the smoke had given place to an eruption of flame.