“I wish the lake had been,” I answered ruefully. “There goes the last of the Racoon. If she topples over we’re done for.”
“But look here,” went on Gerry, gazing at the empty basin with an air of stupefied surprise, “the pool’s fallen below the level of the sea outside. How in the name of wonder do you account for that?”
Lessaution found his voice. “It is one of the many wonders of the volcanic actions which we discover so plentifully in this country. The water withdraws itself—is sucked, if you will—into the bowels of the earth. Perhaps it will rise again. Who knows?”
“In that case,” said I, “we shall live in perpetual dread of sudden drowning, if she’s roped down to the bed of the lake like that. We shall have to buttress her up some other fashion. We must build supports of stone beneath her; then if she should suddenly be floated again she won’t be swamped. But we’d better get down and hear the news.”
The slope below us was short and steep. Lessaution looked down it cautiously. He removed the shot-gun which swung from his back, seated himself upon his cartridge-bag, and splayed out his legs before him. Having thus ingeniously converted himself into a human sledge, he pushed off, and in a moment was flying down the damp, smooth rocks, arriving within a hundred yards of the ship with safety and despatch, and greeted by the ladies with a shrill cheer.
It was undignified, no doubt, but an eminently practical device. We were by no means slow to follow his example, and straddling upon the shining slope, fled down after him with much the effect of luggage being transferred to the Dover boat, and reached the bottom with swiftness and without mishap.
The ladies met us with effusion. Since our departure, they seemed by their own account to have lived on the edge of eternity, expecting fearful disaster at any moment. We learned that the ship had continued to sink all morning, to their great disquietude, though Waller confidently assured them that there must certainly be fathoms of good sea-water between them and the bottom when the fall ceased, as they could not possibly drop lower than the tide-line. Resting on these assurances, they had betaken themselves to lunch, and only discovered the depths of his mistake when the keel took ground, and the ship began to subside crabwise on to the launch, upsetting the table, and wrecking the saloon for the second time in eight-and-forty hours. In great affright they had then scrambled hastily on deck, and camping meanwhile on the slope where we had found them, within half-an-hour had seen the last of the water gurgle gently into the great fissure below.
Waller’s presence of mind had not failed him under this inglorious defeat of his prophetic powers, and he had immediately summoned the crew to stay the reeling ship with windlass and hawser, before she broke down the precarious support of the launch. We found this work being carried to a successful conclusion when we arrived.
After Lessaution’s warning, and as all immediate danger of the ship’s toppling was overcome, I summoned Waller and Janson to me, and explained to them my plan for more accurately bringing about the stability of the ship, and at the same time avoiding the danger of her being swamped if the waters rose again. They agreed as to the soundness of these proposals, called to them the crew, and set forth immediately to the cliff-top to collect boulders.
We of the expedition, meanwhile, having gone without lunch, attacked the meat pie which we had brought back unbroken in our haste, dining heartily, with the bare rocks for table. The ladies waited upon us most assiduously, hearing at the same time an edited account of the day’s perils, for we judged it best to keep from Lady Delahay’s ears, at any rate, the story of the great beast that roamed abroad so near her resting-place. Then we joined the crew who had ascended by devious ways the steep escarpment of the basin, and helped them collect the boulders of the moraine upon the cliff-top in quantities. Here we cast them down headlong till sufficient for my purpose were heaped beside the ship.