"No, sir, no," replied Marbre, with some embarrassment.
"Your trap has not yielded its ordinary contingent then?"
"No, sir; and if any animal had fallen in, it would certainly have been drowned!"
"Drowned!" cried the Lieutenant, looking at the hunter with an anxious expression.
"Yes, sir," replied Marbre, looking attentively at his superior, "the pit is full of water."
"Ah!" said Hobson, in the tone of a man who attached no importance to that, "you know your pit was partly hollowed out of ice; its walls have melted with the heat of the sun, and then "--
"Beg pardon for interrupting you, sir," said Marbre; "but the water cannot have been produced by the melting of ice."
"Why not, Marbre?" "Because if it came from ice it would be sweet, as you explained to me once before. Now the water in our pit is salt!"
Master of himself as he was, Hobson could not help changing countenance slightly, and he had not a word to say.
"Besides," added Marbre, "I wanted to sound the trench, to see how deep the water was, and to my great surprise, I can tell you, I could not find the bottom."