oft lost in some measure the somber taciturnity occasioned by
the devastation and ruin of his domain. His hopes, it is true, were
concentrated upon his vessel.

"We shall finish it," he said to the engineer, "we shall finish it,
captain, and it is time, for the season is advancing and the equinox
will soon be here. Well, if necessary, we must put in to Tabor island
to spend the winter. But think of Tabor island after Lincoln Island. Ah,
how unfortunate! Who could have believed it possible?"

"Let us get on," was the engineer's invariable reply.

And they worked away without losing a moment.

"Master," asked Neb, a few days later, "do you think all this could have
happened if Captain Nemo had been still alive?"

"Certainly, Neb," answered Cyrus Harding.

"I, for one, don't believe it!" whispered Pencroft to Neb.

"Nor I!" answered Neb seriously.

During the first week of March appearances again became menacing.
Thousands of threads like glass, formed of fluid lava, fell like rain
upon the island. The crater was again boiling with lava which overflowed
the back of the volcano. The torrent flowed along the surface of the
hardened tufa, and destroyed the few meager skeletons of trees which had
withstood the first eruption. The stream, flowing this time towards the
southwest shore of Lake Grant, stretched beyond Creek Glycerine, and
invaded the plateau of Prospect Heights. This last blow to the work of
the colonists was terrible. The mill, the buildings of the inner court,
the stables, were all destroyed. The affrighted poultry fled in all
directions. Top and Jup showed signs of the greatest alarm, as if their
instinct warned them of an impending catastrophe. A large number of the
animals of the island had perished in the first eruption. Those which
survived found no refuge but Tadorn Marsh, save a few to which the
plateau of Prospect Heights afforded asylum. But even this last retreat
was now closed to them, and the lava-torrent, flowing over the edge of
the granite wall, began to pour down upon the beach its cataracts of
fire. The sublime horror of this spectacle passed all description.
During the night it could only be compared to a Niagara of molten fluid,
with its incandescent vapors above and its boiling masses below.

The colonists were driven to their last entrenchment, and although the
upper seams of the vessel were not yet calked, they decided to launch
her at once.

Pencroft and Ayrton therefore set abo