That was clear.
The idea of betaking themselves to the _Dobryna_ and _Hansa_ could

not for a moment be seriously entertained; not only did the structure
of the vessels make them utterly insufficient to give substantial shelter,

but they were totally unfitted to be trusted as to their stability
when exposed to the enormouspressure of the accumulated ice.

Neither Servadac, nor the count, nor Lieutenant Procope were men to be
easily disheartened, but it could not be concealed that they felt themselves

in circumstances by which they were equally harassed and perplexed.
The sole expedient that their united counsel could suggest was to obtain

a refuge below ground, and _that_ was denied them by the strange and
impenetrable substratum of the soil; yet hour by hour the sun's disc was

lessening in its dimensions, and although at midday some faint radiance
and glow were to be distinguished, during the night the painfulness

of the cold was becoming almost intolerable.
Mounted upon Zephyr and Galette, the captain and the count

scoured the island in search of some available retreat.
Scarcely a yard of ground was left unexplored, the horses clearing

every obstacle as if they were, like Pegasus, furnished with wings.
But all in vain. Soundings were made again and again,

but invariably with the same result; the rock, hard as adamant,
never failed to reveal itself within a few feet of the surface

of the ground.
The excavation of any silo being thus manifestly hopeless,

there seemed nothing to be done except to try and render
the buildings alongside the gourbi impervious to frost.

To contribute to the supply of fuel, orders were given to collect
every scrap of wood, dry or green, that the island produced;

and this involved the necessity of felling the numerous trees
that were scattered over the plain. But toil as they might

at the accumulation of firewood, Captain Servadac and his
companions could not resist the conviction that the consumption

of a very short period would exhaust the total stock.
And what would happen then?

Studious if possible to conceal his real misgivings, and anxious that
the rest of the party should be affected as little as might be by his

own uneasiness, Servadac would wander alone about the island, racking his
brain for an idea that would point the way out of the serious difficulty.

But still all in vain.
One day he suddenly came upon Ben Zoof, and asked him whether he had no

plan to propose. The orderly shook his head, but after a few moments'
pondering, said: "Ah! master, if only we were at Montmartre, we would

get shelter in the charming stone-quarries."
"Idiot!" replied the captain, angrily, "if we were at Montmartre,

you don't suppose that we should need to live in stone-quarries?"
But the means of preservation which human ingenuity had failed to

secure were at hand from the felicitous provision of Nature herself.
It was on the 10th of March that the captain and Lieutenant Procope

started off once more to investigate the northwest corner of the island;
on their way their conversation naturally was engrossed by the subject

of the dire necessities which only too manifestly were awaiting them.
A discussion more than usually animated arose between them, for the two

men were not altogether of the same mind as to the measures that ought
to be adopted in order to open the fairest chance of avoiding a fatal

climax to their exposure; the captain persisted that an entirely new abode
must be sought, while the lieutenant was equally bent upon devising

a method of some sort by which their present quarters might be rendered
sufficiently warm. All at once, in the very heat of his argument,

Procope paused; he passed his hand across his eyes, as if to dispel a mist,
and stood, with a fixed gaze centered on a point towards the south.

"What is that?" he said, with a kind of hesitation. "No, I am not mistaken,"
he added; "it is a light on the horizon."

"A light!" exclaimed Servadac; "show me where."
"Look there!" answered the lieutenant, and he kept pointing steadily

in its direction, until Servadac also distinctly saw the bright speck
in the distance.

It increased in clearness in the gathering shades of evening.
"Can it be a ship?" asked the captain.

"If so, it must be in flames; otherwise we should not be able
to see it so far off," replied Procope.

"It does not move," said Servadac; "and unless I am greatly deceived,
I can hear a kind of reverberation in the air."

For some seconds the two men stood straining eyes and ears
in rapt attention. Suddenly an idea struck Servadac's mind.

"The volcano!" he cried; "may it not be the volcano that we saw,
whilst we were on board the _Dobryna?_"

The lieutenant agreed that it was very probable.
"Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the captain, and he went

on in the tones of a keen excitement: "Nature has provided
us with our winter quarters; the stream of burning lava

that is flowing there is the gift of a bounteous Providence;
it will provide us all the warmth we need. No time to lose!

To-morrow, my dear Procope, to-morrow we will explore it all;
no doubt the life, the heat we want is reserved for us in the heart

and bowels of our own Gallia!"
Whilst the captain was indulging in his expressions of enthusiasm,

Procope was endeavoring to collect his thoughts. Distinctly he remembered
the long promontory which had barred the _Dobryna's_ progress while coasting

the southern confines of the sea, and which had obliged her to ascend
northwards as far as the former latitude of Oran; he remembered also that at

the extremity of the promontory there was a rocky headland crowned with smoke;
and now he was convinced that he was right in identifying the position,

and in believing that the smoke had given place to an eruption of flame.
When Servadac gave him a chance of speaking, he said, "The more I consider

it, captain, the more I am satisfied that your conjecture is correct.
Beyond a doubt, what we see is the volcano, and to-morrow we will not fail

to visit it."
On returning to the gourbi, they communicated their discovery to

Count Timascheff only, deeming any further publication of it to be premature.
The count at once placed his yacht at their disposal, and expressed

his intention of accompanying them.
"The yacht, I think," said Procope, "had better remain where she is;

the weather is beautifully calm, and the steam-launch will answer
our purpose better; at any rate, it will convey us much closer

to shore than the schooner."
The count replied that the lieutenant was by all means to use

his own discretion, and they all retired for the night.
Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the _Dobryna_, in addition

to her four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going little steam-launch,
its screw being propelled, on the Oriolle system, by means of a boiler,

small but very effective. Early next morning, this handy little craft
was sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still about ten

tons on board the _Dobryna_), and manned by nobody except the captain,
the count, and the lieutenant, left the harbor of the Shelif, much to the

bewilderment of Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into the secret.
The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflection that he had

been temporarily invested with the full powers of governor general,
an office of which he was not a little proud.

The eighteen miles between the island and the headland
were made in something less than three hours.

The volcaniceruption was manifestly very considerable,
the entire summit of the promontory being enveloped in flames.

To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of Gallia's
atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive gases

contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable,
the volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal

supply of oxygen of her own.
It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable landing-place.

At length, a small semi-circular creek was discovered among the rocks,
which appeared advantageous, because, if circumstances should so require,

it would form a safe anchorage for both the _Dobryna_ and the _Hansa_.
The launchsecurely moored, the passengers landed on the side of

the promontory opposite to that on which a torrent of burning lava
was descending to the sea. With much satisfaction they experienced,

as they approached the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature,
and their spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect of having

their hopes confirmed, that a deliverance from the threatened calamity
had so opportunely been found. On they went, up the steep acclivity,

scrambling over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities of its
gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility of chamois,

but never alighting on anything except on the accumulation of the same
hexagonal prisms with which they had now become so familiar.

Their exertions were happily rewarded. Behind a huge pyramidal rock they
found a hole in the mountain-side, like the mouth of a great tunnel.