shall finish it," he said to the engineer, "we shall finish it,
captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox
will soon be here. Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor Island
to spend the winter. But think of Tabor Island after Lincoln Island.
Ah, how unfortunate! Who could have believed it possible?"

"Let us get on," was the engineer's invariable reply.

And they worked away without losing a moment.

"Master," asked Neb, a few days later, "do you think all this could have
happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?"

"Certainly, Neb," answered Cyrus Harding.

"I, for one, don't believe it!" whispered Pencroft to Neb.

"Nor I!" answered Neb seriously.

During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.
Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain
upon the island. The crater was again boiling with lava which
overflowed the back of the volcano. The torrent flowed along the
surface of the hardened tufa, and destroyed the few meagre skeletons of
trees which had withstood the first eruption. The stream flowing this
time towards the south-west shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek
Glycerine, and invaded the plateau of Prospect Heights. This last blow
to the work of the colonists was terrible. The mill, the buildings of
the inner court, the stables, were all destroyed. The affrighted
poultry fled in all directions. Top and Jup showed signs of the
greatest alarm, as if their instinct warned them of an impending
catastrophe. A large number of the animals of the island had perished
in the first eruption. Those which survived found no refuge but Tadorn
Marsh, save a few to which the plateau of Prospect Heights afforded an
asylum. But even this last retreat was now closed to them, and the
lava-torrent, flowing over the edge of the granite wall, began to pour
down upon the beach its cataracts of fire. The sublime horror of this
spectacle passed all description. During the night it could only be
compared to a Niagara of molten fluid, with its incandescent vapours
above and its boiling masses below.

The colonists were driven to their last entrenchment, and although the
upper seams of the vessel were not yet caulked, they decided to launch
her at once.

Pencroft and Ayrton therefore set about the necessary preparations for
the launch, which was to take place the morning of the next day, the 9th
of March.

But, during the night of t