Harding was obliged to confess that absolute silence did not reign there.
On arriving at the end of one of these gloomy caverns, extending several hundred feet into the interior of the mountain, he was surprised to hear a deep rumbling noise, increased in intensity by the sonorousness of the rocks.
Gideon Spilett, who accompanied him, also heard these distant mutterings, which indicated a revivification of the subterranean fires. Several times both listened, and they agreed that some chemical process was taking place in the bowels of the earth.
“Then the volcano is not totally extinct?” said the reporter.
“It is possible that since our exploration of the crater,” replied Cyrus Harding, “some change has occurred. Any volcano, although considered extinct, may evidently again burst forth.”
“But if an eruption of Mount Franklin occurred,” asked Spilett, “would there not be some danger to Lincoln Island?”
“I do not think so,” answered the reporter. “The crater—that is to say, the safety-valve, exists, and the overflow of smoke and lava would escape, as it did formerly, by its customary outlet.”
“Unless the lava opened a new way for itself towards the fertile parts of the island!”
“And why, my dear Spilett,” answered Cyrus Harding, “should it not follow the road naturally traced out for it?”