"We must wait," said he. "The tide is high. At low-water the way will
be open."
"But what can make you think--" asked Pencroft.
"He would not have called us if the means had been wanting to enable us
to reach him!"
Cyrus Harding spoke in a tone of such thorough conviction that no
objection was raised. His remark, besides, was logical. It was quite
possible that an opening, practicable at low-water, though hidden now by
the high tide, opened at the foot of the cliff.
There was some time to wait. The colonists remained silently crouching
in a deep hollow. Rain now began to fall in torrents. The thunder was
re-echoed among the rocks with a grand sonorousness.
The colonists' emotion was great. A thousand strange and extraordinary
ideas crossed their brains, and they expected some grand and superhuman
apparition, which alone could come up to the notion they had formed of
the mysterious genius of the island.
At midnight, Harding, carrying the lantern, descended to the beach to
reconnoitre.
The engineer was not mistaken. The beginning of an immense excavation
could be seen under the water. There the wire, bending at a right
angle, entered the yawning gulf.