Thomas Roch is going to his laboratory, and Ker Karraje and Engineer Serko are tranquilly pacing backwards and forwards by the lake and chatting.

The island therefore could not have been attacked during the night.

Yet I was awakened by the report of cannon, this I will swear.
At this moment Ker Karraje goes off towards his abode and Engineer Serko, smilingly ironical, as usual, advances to meet me.
"Well, Mr.Simon Hart," he says, "are you getting accustomed to your tranquil existence?
Do you appreciate at their just merit the advantages of this enchanted grotto?
Have you given up all hope of recovering your liberty some day or other ?" What is the use of waxing wroth with this jester?
I reply calmly: "No, sir.

I have not given up hope, and I still expect that I shall be released." "What! Mr.Hart, separate ourselves from a man whom we all esteem--and I from a colleague who perhaps, in the course of Thomas Roch's fits of delirium, has learned some of his secrets?
You are not serious!" So this is why they are keeping me a prisoner in Back Cup! They suppose that I am in part familiar with Roch's invention, and they hope to force me to tell what I know if Thomas Roch refuses to give up his secret.

This is the reason why I was kidnapped with him, and why I have not been accommodated with an involuntary plunge in the lagoon with a stone fastened to my neck.