ing a lurid glare upon the surrounding gloom. In time the glow of
the burning lava, reflected in the icy mirror, fell upon the troop of
skaters, and cast their lengthened shadows grotesquely on the surface of
the frozen sea.

Later still, half an hour or more afterwards, the torches were all but
dying out. The shore was close at hand. All at once, Ben Zoof uttered
a startled cry, and pointed with bewildered excitement towards the
mountain. Involuntarily, one and all, they plowed their heels into the
ice and came to a halt. Exclamations of surprise and horror burst from
every lip. The volcano was extinguished! The stream of burning lava had
suddenly ceased to flow!

Speechless with amazement, they stood still for some moments. There was
not one of them that did not realize, more or less, how critical was
their position. The sole source of the heat that had enabled them to
brave the rigor of the cold had failed them! death, in the cruellest of
all shapes, seemed staring them in the face--death from cold! Meanwhile,
the last torch had flickered out.

It was quite dark.

"Forward!" cried Servadac, firmly.

At the word of command they advanced to the shore; clambered with
no little difficulty up the slippery rocks; gained the mouth of the
gallery; groped their way into the common hall.

How dreary! how chill it seemed!

The fiery cataract no longer spread its glowing covering over the mouth
of the grotto. Lieutenant Procope leaned through the aperture. The pool,
hitherto kept fluid by its proximity to the lava, was already encrusted
with a layer of ice.

Such was the end of the New Year's Day so happily begun.

CHAPTER XII. THE BOWELS OF THE COMET

The whole night was spent in speculating, with gloomy forebodings, upon
the chances of the future. The temperature of the hall, now entirely
exposed to the outer air, was rapidly falling, and would quickly become
unendurable. Far too intense was the cold to allow anyone to remain at
the opening, and the moisture on the walls soon resolved itself into
icicles. But the mountain was like the body of a dying man, that retains
awhile a certain amount of heat at the heart after the extremities have
become cold and dead. In the more interior galleries there was still a
certain degree of warmth, and hither Servadac and his companions were
glad enough to retreat.

Here they found the professor, who, startled by the sudden cold, had
been fain to make a precipitate retrea