sorbed and
assimilated it.

The horizon turned crimson with all the flames of the vanished sun; and
long, red clouds, set motionless in the sky, formed glorious
landscapes, fantastic lagoons, fiery plains, forests of gold, lakes of
blood, a whole glowing and peaceful phantasmagoria.

The blue of the sky grew darker. Venus shone with a marvelous
brightness; then other stars lit up, timid as yet.

And Beautrelet suddenly closed his eyes and convulsively pressed his
folded arms to his forehead. Over there--oh, he felt as though he would
die for joy, so great was the cruel emotion that wrung his heart!--over
there, almost at the top of the Needle of Etretat, a little below the
extreme point round which the sea-mews fluttered, a thread of smoke
came filtering through a crevice, as though from an invisible chimney,
a thread of smoke rose in slow spirals in the calm air of the twilight.

CHAPTER NINE

OPEN, SESAME!

The Etretat Needle was hollow!

Was it a natural phenomenon, an excavation produced by internal
cataclysms or by the imperceptible action of the rushing sea and the
soaking rain? Or was it a superhuman work executed by human beings,
Gauls, Celts, prehistoric men?

These, no doubt, were insoluble questions; and what did it matter? The
essence of the thing was contained in this fact: The Needle was hollow.
At forty or fifty yards from that imposing arch which is called the
Porte d'Aval and which shoots out from the top of the cliff, like the
colossal branch of a tree, to take root in the submerged rocks, stands
an immense limestone cone; and this cone is no more than the shell of a
pointed cap poised upon the empty waters!

A prodigious revelation! After Lupin, here was Beautrelet discovering
the key to the great riddle that had loomed over more than twenty
centuries! A key of supreme importance to whoever possessed it in the
days of old, in those distant times when hordes of barbarians rode
through and overran the old world! A magic key that opens the cyclopean
cavern to whole tribes fleeing before the enemy! A mysterious key that
guards the door of the most inviolable shelter! An enchanted key that
gives power and ensures preponderance!

Because he knows this key, Caesar is able to subdue Gaul. Because they
know it, the Normans force their sway upon the country and, from there,
later, backed by that support, conquer the neighboring island, conquer
Sicily, conquer the East, conquer the new world