"What?"
"Why, it's rising, chief, it's rising! . . ."
"What's rising?"
"The water! . . ."
M. Lenormand felt a shudder pass over his skin. He suddenly understood. It was not a casual trickling through, as he had thought, but a carefully-prepared flood, mechanically, irresistibly produced by some infernal system.
"Oh, the scoundrel!" he snarled. "If ever I lay hands on him . . . !"
"Yes, yes, chief, but we must first get out of this. . . . And, as far as I can see . . ."
Gourel seemed completely prostrated, incapable of having an idea, of proposing a plan.
M. Lenormand knelt down on the ground and measured the rate at which the water was rising. A quarter, or thereabouts, of the first door was covered; and the water was half-way toward the second door.
"The progress is slow, but uninterrupted," he said "In a few hours it will be over our heads."