“How?” asked the professor bluntly.
“By hitting it with a bullet.”
“What?”
“I mean what I say. We have a pistol and two of us at least are good shots. We will place that explosive in the hole in the rock when it is drilled and then fire it by striking it with a bullet from the revolver, Tom secured when Lake dropped it.”
“That is a good idea,” said the professor dryly, “but when the explosion comes what is to become of us?”
Chillingworth’s enthusiasm vanished like the effervescence of a wet rocket.
“I didn’t think of that,” he said. “There is a chance that we might be blown to pieces by the same explosion that rends the rock.”
“Perfectly correct,” agreed the professor, with a curious ring in his voice, “but not necessary. The force of my explosive, when confined, is invariably downward and inward. That is to say, in this case if we bore a hole at a steep angle into the rock, we may be able to shatter part of it without hurting ourselves.”
The Kanakas were at once set to work boring another hole slanting in the proposed direction. When this was accomplished, the professor gingerly placed the tube of high explosive within the aperture and announced that, so far as he was concerned, all was ready.
“Hold on a minute,” exclaimed Tom, as a sudden idea struck him.