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
t