wder the very day we want it?"

Cyrus Harding listened to the enthusiastic Pencroft developing his
fanciful projects. To attack this mass of granite, even by a mine, was
Herculean work, and it was really vexing that nature could not help them
at their need. But the engineer did not reply to the sailor except by
proposing to examine the cliff more attentively, from the mouth of the
river to the angle which terminated it on the north.

They went out, therefore, and the exploration was made with extreme
care, over an extent of nearly two miles. But in no place in the bare,
straight cliff, could any cavity be found. The nests of the rock pigeons
which fluttered at its summit were only, in reality, holes bored at the
very top, and on the irregular edge of the granite.

It was a provoking circumstance, and as to attacking this cliff, either
with pickaxe or with powder, so as to effect a sufficient excavation, it
was not to be thought of. It so happened that, on all this part of the
shore, Pencroft had discovered the only habitable shelter, that is to
say, the Chimneys, which now had to be abandoned.

The exploration ended, the colonists found themselves at the north angle
of the cliff, where it terminated in long slopes which died away on the
shore. From this place, to its extreme limit in the west, it only formed
a sort of declivity, a thick mass of stones, earth, and sand, bound
together by plants, bushes, and grass inclined at an angle of only
forty-five degrees. Clumps of trees grew on these slopes, which were
also carpeted with thick grass. But the vegetation did not extend
far, and a long, sandy plain, which began at the foot of these slopes,
reached to the beach.

Cyrus Harding thought, not without reason, that the overplus of the lake
must overflow on this side. The excess of water furnished by the Red
Creek must also escape by some channel or other. Now the engineer had
not yet found this channel on any part of the shore already explored,
that is to say, from the mouth of the stream on the west of Prospect
Heights.

The engineer now proposed to his companions to climb the slope, and to
return to the Chimneys by the heights, while exploring the northern
and eastern shores of the lake. The proposal was accepted, and in a few
minutes Herbert and Neb were on the upper plateau. Cyrus Harding, Gideon
Spilett, and Pencroft followed with more sedate steps.

The beautiful sheet of water glittered through the trees unde