"Nothing fresh, my dear fellow."
"Then we are bound for up aloft?"
"I hope so, eventually, but that, as you know, depends very much upon circumstances. What we have to do now is to send the rock there."
"I stand corrected, and, at the same time, ready for anything.
Command me."
They were obliged to rouse the soldiers themselves, because, in order to avoid encumbering themselves with a mass of things, they had brought neither drums nor horns with them.
When the Beluchs received the order to make one single heap of all their provision of powder, they looked at each other in astonishment, collected together, and began talking in whispers.
"What is the matter with them? Why do they not obey?" asked M.
Desrioux of the interpreter.
"They accuse you," he replied, "of having some sinister designs with regard to them, with wishing to leave them to their fate, and taking away from them all means of defending themselves and resisting you."
The Doctor joined the group of Beluchs, and, with the aid of the interpreter, endeavoured to explain to them as clearly as possible what he intended to do. They did not understand him in the least; powder, in their idea, was put into a gun, and, when ignited, sent out a bullet. The idea of employing it in any other way had never occurred to them. The Doctor thought that experience would be a more satisfactory and sufficient instructor than any argument, and so he took up a stone about the size of one of our Paris, paving-stones, put a small quantity of powder under it, made a sort of match out of the rope, set fire to it, and awaited the result. In about a moment, to the profound consternation of the soldiers, who were looking on with wondering eyes, a report was heard, and the stone was shattered to pieces. They understood the whole business now; it was only a question of doing the same thing on a larger scale, and they were all ready to lend a hand.
When the powder had been collected in a heap, four men carried it close to the rock, and poured it into the fissure which sloped down at the same angle as the block of granite itself.