"I should not be at all sorry, believe me," said the Count, completing the sentence, "but I have done my very best to think of something, and I have found nothing."
"That being so, do me the favour of not crying out before you are hurt, and oblige me by at least discussing my very modest proposition."
"Let us discuss it by all means. What quantity of powder have you at your disposal?"
"A very respectable quantity indeed, nearly a hundred kilos."
"Something may be done with that."
"Very much may be done, I can assure you. Ordinary powder is quite as powerful as blasting powder, which is used solely on account of its being of a larger grain, and, consequently, slower of combustion. But our powder, notwithstanding its fine grain, has not lost any of its virtue in this sunburnt country, and, besides, it has been kept in hermetically-sealed tin canisters, so that I believe it to be in thoroughly good order. I will add, my dear Count, that when I said 'we will blow up the rock,' I was not speaking with strict accuracy. I do not pretend, even with a hundred kilos of powder, to send it up into the air like a sky-rocket. I hope merely to shake it violently, to give it a severe shock, and, as it is placed on an incline and nothing appears to be in its way on the side opposite to that where we now are, we may possibly succeed in displacing it or make a breach in it, and by that means open up a passage for ourselves."
"Enough, enough!" exclaimed M. de Pommerelle. "I begin to share your hopes. One more objection, nevertheless—you have not noticed any fissure in this block, and we have no instrument wherewith to bore it; how, then, do you propose to introduce the powder?"
"You are quite right," replied the doctor, "in saying that there is not a single fissure on the face of it which would in any way assist us in scaling it, but, as you may see, there are at its base a number of small channels, if I may use the word. Come and lie down on the ground with me. Now, do you see them?"
"Yes, perfectly. Here is one running right through the rock; I can see daylight on the other side."
"Well, it is in that particular chink that we are going to introduce the powder."