the
heavens, than he would begin overwhelming everybody about him with
bitter complaints, pouring out his regrets that he had ever quitted his
quarters at Formentera.

On the 4th of January, by persevering industry, the process of boring
was completed, and the lieutenant could hear that fragments of the
blasted rock, as the sailors cleared them away with their spades, were
rolling into the funnel of the crater. He noticed, too, that they did
not fall perpendicularly, but seemed to slide along, from which he
inferred that the sides of the crater were sloping; he had therefore
reason to hope that a descent would be found practicable.

Larger and larger grew the orifice; at length it would admit a man's
body, and Ben Zoof, carrying a torch, pushed himself through it,
followed by the lieutenant and Servadac. Procope's conjecture proved
correct. On entering the crater, they found that the sides slanted at
the angle of about 4 degrees; moreover, the eruption had evidently been
of recent origin, dating probably only from the shock which had invested
Gallia with a proportion of the atmosphere of the earth, and beneath
the coating of ashes with which they were covered, there were various
irregularities in the rock, not yet worn away by the action of the lava,
and these afforded a tolerably safe footing.

"Rather a bad staircase!" said Ben Zoof, as they began to make their way
down.

In about half an hour, proceeding in a southerly direction, they had
descended nearly five hundred feet. From time to time they came
upon large excavations that at first sight had all the appearance of
galleries, but by waving his torch, Ben Zoof could always see their
extreme limits, and it was evident that the lower strata of the mountain
did not present the same system of ramification that rendered the Hive
above so commodious a residence.

It was not a time to be fastidious; they must be satisfied with such
accommodation as they could get, provided it was warm. Captain Servadac
was only too glad to find that his hopes about the temperature were to
a certain extent realized. The lower they went, the greater was the
diminution in the cold, a diminution that was far more rapid than that
which is experienced in making the descent of terrestrial mines. In
this case it was a volcano, not a colliery, that was the object of
exploration, and thankful enough they were to find that it had not
become extinct. Although the lava, from some unknown cause,