CHAPTER XVII.
ONE AGAINST FIVE.
For a whole hour I wander about among Back Cup's dark vaults, amid the stone trees, to the extreme limit of the cavern.

It is here that I have so often sought an issue, a crevice, a crack through which I might squeeze to the shore of the island.
My search has been futile.

In my present condition, a prey to indefinable hallucinations it seems to me that these walls are thicker than ever, that they are gradually closing in upon and will crush me.
How long this mental trouble lasts I cannot say.

But I afterwards find myself on the Beehive side, opposite the cell in which I cannot hope for either repose or sleep.

Sleep, when my brain is in a whirl of excitement?
Sleep, when I am near the end of a situation that threatened to be prolonged for years and years?
What will the end be as far as I am personally concerned?
What am I to expect from the attack upon Back Cup, the success of which I have been unable to assure by placing Thomas Roch beyond the possibility of doing harm?
His engines are ready to be launched, and as soon as the vessels have reached the dangerous zone they will be blown to atoms.
However this may be, I am condemned to pass the remaining hours of the night in my cell.