In this event, of what possible use would Thomas Roch's invention be to the Count d'Artigas Decidedly, I cannot understand it! About seven o'clock in the morning I jump out of bed.

If I am a prisoner in the cavern I am at least not imprisoned in my grotto cell.
The door yields when I turn the handle and push against it, and I walk out.
Thirty yards in front of me is a rocky plane, forming a sort of quay that extends to right and left.

Several sailors of the _Ebba_ are engaged in landing bales and stores from the interior of the tug, which lays alongside a little stone jetty.
A dim light to which my eyes soon grow accustomed envelops the cavern and comes from a hole in the centre of the roof, through which the blue sky can be seen.
"It is from that hole that the smoke which can be seen for such a distance issues," I say to myself, and this discovery suggests a whole series of reflections.
Back Cup, then, is not a volcano, as was supposed--as I supposed myself.

The flames that were seen a few years ago, and the columns of smoke that still rise were and are produced artificially.

The detonations and rumblings that so alarmed the Bermudan fishers were not caused by the internal workings of nature.