“The door!” he exclaimed. “There’s the door! And no need of a key to open it with! Ah, captain, you were in the right of it after all!”
“Get on to it! Get on to it!” was all Captain Gould’s reply.
It was easy to clear the passage of the obstructing stones. They passed them from hand to hand, quite a lot of them, for the heap was five or six feet above the ground level. As the work proceeded the current of air became stronger. There most certainly was a sort of gorge carved out inside the mass of the rock.
A quarter of an hour was enough to clear the passage entirely.
Fritz was the first through, and, followed by the others, he went ten or twelve steps up a very steep slope, dimly lighted.
There was no vertical shaft. A gorge, five or six feet wide and open to the sky, wound between two walls which rose to an immense height, and a strip of blue sky formed its ceiling. It was down this gorge the wind rushed, to creep through the fissures in the wall at the end of the passage.
And so the cliff was rent right through! But where did the rift open out?
They could not tell until they had reached the far end of it, supposing they found it possible to do so.
But for all that they stood like prisoners before whom the gaol doors have just opened!
It was barely eight o’clock, and there was plenty of time. They did not even discuss the question of sending Fritz or the boatswain on in advance to explore. Everyone wanted to go up the passage at once, without losing a minute.