ow
you won't own it, but you _did_ get a nasty bump against that rock
yonder."

"I fancy you're right there," answered Pierre, sinking wearily upon the
ledge. "But we don't need the candle while we're sitting still, you
know. Blow it out, and light it again when we start."

Jack did so, and they sat silent in the darkness. All at once Pierre
heard his comrade call out,

"I say, don't you hear water falling somewhere?"

"To be sure I do," replied Pierre, after listening a moment. "We must be
close to the place where this stream falls down into the tunnel, and now
we'll have a chance of getting out at last. Bravo!"

Jack slapped his hands together, with a shout that made the cavern echo.

"I've got an idea, Pierre, my boy! What a fool I was not to think of it
before! This stream that we've been following is the Larve, and we've
got to the very place where it falls through the cleft. Now if we can
only get out with whole bones, it's fifteen hundred francs apiece to us.
Come along, quick!"

All Pierre's weariness was gone in a minute. Already, in his mind's eye,
he saw his ailing father comfortably provided for, and Jack and himself
standing out to sea in a brand-new boat. The instant the candle was
lighted they were off again at a pace which would have seemed impossible
a few minutes before.

Guided by the increasing din of the water-fall, they were not long in
reaching a huge perpendicular funnel or chimney in the rock, down one
side of which poured a stream of water, while through a cleft above,
dazzlingly radiant after the darkness of the buried passage, came a
bright gleam of _sunshine_. Just then a big stone, flung from above,
came thundering down into the chasm, falling close to the feet of the
two explorers.

"That's the boys at their fun," said Jack, laughing. "I've done it many
a time myself. Above there--hoy!"

The only answer was a howl of terror and the sound of flying feet.
Pierre, alarmed at the thought of being deserted, shouted in his turn,

"Help, comrades! help!"

"Who's that calling?" asked a gruff voice from above, while the light
was obscured by a broad visage peering down into the hole.

"Holloa, Gaspard! is that you?" cried Pierre, recognizing the voice of
one of his father's fisher cronies.

"What, Pierre Lebon! _you_ down there? Well, who ever saw the like? Just
wait a minute, while I run for a rope."

But before he could return there were already more than a hundred people
gath